TheCable

Timi Frank, a former deputy spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to probe the former managing directors of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

Frank was specific about Effiong Akwa and Emmanuel Audu-Ohwavborua immediate past MDs of the commission.

Owing to the monumental corruption in the commission, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a forensic audit of the NDDC’s operations from 2001 to 2019.

The audit is said to have covered a total of 13,777 contracts awarded from 2001 to 2019 at a final contract value of N3,274,206,032,213.24.

In a statement in Abuja on Sunday, Frank said the board should work towards making the findings of the audit report public.

The politician asked the newly inaugurated NDDC board led by Lauretta Onochie, its chair, to be distanced from corruption.

“As a friend, I will commend the agency if it stays true to its mandate under your tenure but I will not also fail to expose any iota of corruption or other forms of illegalities should I notice such in the commission going forward,” he said.

“I congratulate the new board and urge them to distance themselves from the predisposition of past leadership of the agency that turned the commission into a cesspit of corruption and rendered it comatose.

“The new board must demonstrate a clean break with the sordid past of the agency by urgently making the report, findings and recommendations of the forensic audit carried out last year in the agency public.

“The exercise was carried out with taxpayers’ money and all Nigerians, especially the people of the Niger Delta, deserve to know why the agency became a personal estate for a few eggheads instead of the generality of the people of the Niger Delta region.

“Let the board know that some of us are critical stakeholders in the region. Our duty is to closely monitor the activities of the Commission. If they do well we shall commend them.

“But if they neglect their duty and focus on illegalities, we shall expose them.”

“Information at my disposal shows that the last acting MD following the sack of Akwa allegedly awarded 38 contracts to few firms within a space of two months as well as spent a whopping 500 Million to purchase Christmas rice out of which not even a grain got to any household in the region.”