Akpabio calls NDDC an ATM to contest elections, faults National Assembly probe

The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, has described the Niger Delta Development Commission (NCDC) as an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) where people make withdrawals to contest elections.

The minister made the assertion when members of the Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) visited him in Abuja.

“As a Governor I knew that there is something wrong with the NDDC but I didn’t really know what it was till I was appointed minister that was when I discovered that the NDDC was like a sex pool for corruption, it is like an ATM for people to come and collect money to contest next election,” Akpabio said.

He added that the NDDC was like a sex pool for serious corruption for over 19years before he was appointed into office in 2015.

Akpabio faulted the National Assembly inquest into the financial activities of NDDC between February and July 2020 rather than embark on a comprehensive probe of the interventionist agency’s 19 years of existence.

The NDDC, he stated, received over N5 trillion in the last 19 years, with no physical project on ground to justify the huge funds and wondered why the lawmakers decided to probe five months activities in the commission.

He noted that discretionary probe would not address the problem of the commission, which he described as a sex pool of corruption.

Akpabio, however, assured Niger Delta residents and Nigerians that the outcome of the ongoing forensic audit would expose the magnitude of rot in the Commission.

The minister said, “All they are talking about now is corruption in five months not corruption in 19years, so those period were periods of bliss and successes for the NDDC.

“I am sure that is why you have roads to pass in the region, that is why you have bridges everywhere in Niger Delta, that is why you have dualised roads and flyovers everywhere, that is why you have NDDC hospitals everywhere in the region to the extent that you don’t even need to travel out of the region to look for medical care, that is why the region is very rich with light everywhere, that is why we don’t have single problem in Ogoni land because everywhere has been cleaned up, pipe-borne water everywhere.

“Niger Delta is reigning with development after N5trillion in 19years, the problem we have now is just this five months, that is why we are probing the five months in National Assembly, but the reverse is the case, if you are from Niger Delta you will know that we need to ask questions.

“This is a place that was built out of the blood of our children and after all this years, one would have thought that yes, we have arrived, even if 20percent of the N5trillion have gone into the region we could have seen something on ground.

“As I speak, there is no single hospital that you can point to that this is NDDC hospital, as I speak, in the entire Ogoni land water is a problem, people are still using canoes in Niger Delta to go and get just a bucket of clean water from the next community.

He alleged that the orchestration against him and the IMC was so organised and well-funded “That you hardly open a newspaper and you don’t see screaming headline, and all they are talking now is corruption in five months; not corruption in 19 tears and seven months. Those ones were period of bliss and period of success in the NDDC.”
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