Akpabio Exposes Root Cause of NDDC Crisis and Abandoned Projects

Senate President Godswill Akpabio has openly identified the true source of the persistent troubles facing the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

During the grand finale of the NDDC’s 25th-anniversary celebration in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, held on Saturday, Akpabio highlighted that internal disunity among the commission’s leadership is the fundamental cause of the challenges besetting the agency.

He disclosed that an alarming total of over 17,500 projects initiated by the NDDC remain abandoned, primarily due to frequent leadership changes and internal conflicts within the management team.

“Why is the NDDC struggling with so many challenges? There are various reasons, but a major one is the leadership tussle,” Akpabio stated.

The Senate President explained that in the Niger Delta region, there is a prevalent political culture he described as the “politics of the same head,” where leaders are impatient and unwilling to allow others their turn. This unhealthy rivalry, he noted, leads to internal conspiracies that destabilize successive management teams.

Akpabio elaborated further:

“Each NDDC management team tends to conspire against itself. Often, existing staff facilitate conflicts, and soon after, they manage to have the leadership ousted. In many cases, the acting Managing Director emerges from within the same staff who fueled the crisis.”

Drawing from his experience as the former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Akpabio recounted his firsthand understanding of the commission’s structural problems.

“When I served as Minister, I discovered that internal conflicts were the core issue. The NDDC, despite being established for over two decades, operated from a rented property on Aba Road, Port Harcourt, paying a staggering N300 million annually in rent. Shockingly, that facility was never connected to the national electricity grid,” he said.

This revelation by the Senate President emphasizes the deep-seated dysfunction within the NDDC and sheds light on the agency’s inability to fulfill its developmental mandate to the Niger Delta region