A former Nigerian governor, Victor Attah, has spoken about why the country’s Niger Delta region remains underdeveloped and mired in abject poverty despite successive governments’ attempts to reverse the trend.
Attah, an architect, was governor of the oil-rich state of Akwa Ibom from 1999 to 2007.
He is often referred to as the “apostle of resource control” due to his persistent campaign for the Niger Delta to control the oil found in his region.
Nigeria’s economy is heavily dependent on the export of crude oil, but in the Niger Delta region, where the oil is produced, residents continue to struggle for economic survival amid environmental pollution.
In the past, the region had witnessed youth unrest and attacks on oil facilities, forcing the Nigerian government to introduce measures – such as the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) – to address its underdevelopment. .
“You don’t need a big bureaucracy”
Attah said that successive governments, due to selfish interests, corruption and lack of clear objectives, missed opportunities in the past to stop unrest and change things in the Niger Delta.
“I was there when our president at the time was creating the NDDC and I made a suggestion to him. I told him: ‘Look, you don’t need a big bureaucracy, just a few people in the presidency: three, four, five, no more.’
“At the end of the month, come and tell me, just like you do at FAAC, how much is allocated to my state as a result of this NDDC matter, I will present you with the projects, you award the contract, yes I want to be the awarding body for the contracts, and I will oversee and ensure that those contracts are carried out. And these problems of abandoned projects would not happen,” Attah said Thursday in an interview with Arise News.
Former Akwa Ibom Estate, Victor Attah. [Photo credit: Daily POst]“But the president said, ‘Hmm, maybe we’d better create a different organization.’ So an organization was created. We went to see the first president of NDDC and tried to propose to him a system where this could work smoothly and something very strange happened in that meeting. The president looked at us and said, ‘Look, the man who sent me here asked me to come here and empower his supporters. Now, if that is the purpose of the NDDC, how can you develop the Niger Delta region?”
The NDDC Law makes provisions for the commission’s advisory committee, which should be made up of governors from the nine states that make up the Niger Delta region. The committee’s job is primarily advisory and oversight to ensure the NDDC achieves its goals, but the practical role governors have been playing in running the commission is unclear for now.
‘New city concept’
Attah said he had also suggested the federal government adopt the “new city concept” to bring development to remote areas of the Niger Delta.
“The only new city I know of in Nigeria is Abuja. But that was done without a new municipal policy. That is why Wike (the FCT minister) is having problems today because every minister that comes in does what he wants because there is no policy.
“We could have created a new city in Ogoniland, we could have created a new city in Bayelsa, we could have created a new city in Akwa Ibom, next to the Ibaka deep seaport that we were proposing,” he said.
Attah said Nigeria’s capital Abuja would not have reached its current level of development if its fate had been left to other ministries. He said that the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs has not received sufficient funds from the federal government.
“There is a lot of confusion in the concept of development in the Niger Delta region. You have the amnesty program, you have the
Recently completed ultra-modern 13-story twin-tower building for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) headquarters PHOTO CREDIT: Twitter @NDDCOnline
we have the 13 percent (oil) diversion fund, now we have the Niger Delta Ministry.
“This all arose because when we started something we discovered that it is inadequate. We start another one, we discover that it is not enough and so we continue. And yet we can’t concentrate.”
‘Final solution’
Attah said the ultimate solution to the development challenges in the Niger Delta is to allow the region to have control of its resources.
“I tell you something: the people who oppose this control of resources, tell me they are Christians, and I ask them if they have not read the story of the man in the Bible who found a treasure hidden under a field and sold everything he had . to go buy that field.
“It’s because he knew that everything under that land, as long as the land belongs to him, belongs to him. But in Nigeria we want to say that the oil on our soil does not belong to us, it belongs to everyone. And everybody comes and steals it.
“It doesn’t happen like that. We have to fully accept the concept of resource control, acknowledge the fact that what is yours is yours but you share it because that is the concept of nation or even country. But not because someone comes along and takes it from you and gives you what it says they should give you. No, that can’t work. So we have to go back and have control of resources,” he said.
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