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The Akwa Ibom governor is accused of violating the NDDC act.
The submission of the name of the Secretary to the Akwa Ibom State Government, Umanah Umanah, for consideration and appointment as the next Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has stirred a political rancour between Governor Godswill Akpabio and the oil producing communities in the state.
PREMIUM TIMES gathered at the weekend that Mr. Umanah, widely believed to be nursing the ambition to succeed Mr. Akpabio at the Hilltop Government Mansion, Uyo, come 2015, was one of the three nominees whose names were recently submitted to the Presidency for consideration for appointment into the office.
The other nominees submitted by Mr. Akpabio include Loveday Ekuyok from Eastern Obolo Local Government Area of the state and the Special Adviser to the Governor on Technical Matters, Etido Inyang.
Although the particulars of the trio are currently being subjected to normal screening processes by the relevant security agencies, it was gathered that the nominations are already causing ripples in political circles in the state, as the oil producing communities have expressed misgivings at the proposed appointments.
While some are alleging that two of the nominations contravened the provisions of the NDDC Act 2000, which stipulates that the head of the Commission must be an indigene of any of the major oil producing communities in the Niger Delta region, others are insinuating that the inclusion of Mr. Umanah was a ploy by Mr. Akpabio to distract him from focusing on his governorship plans.
Although the governor was widely thought to have tacitly endorsed Mr. Umanah as his preferred successor, political pundits in the state claim Mr. Akpabio now appears to favour a power shift to someone from the other minority groups in the state over the majority area where Mr. Umanah comes from.
Also, leaders from the oil producing communities of the state, including Eket, Ibeno, Onna, Esit Eket and Oron, have reportedly dispatched a protest letter to Mr. Akpabio to draw his attention to their misgivings about the nominations.
But an aide to the governor said on Monday that the nominations were done in absolute good faith without any political booby traps in line with the administration’s commitment to putting its best foot forward by presenting the best men for available jobs.
In the letter by the Paramount Ruler for Ibeno, Owong Achanga, the largest oil community in the state, the oil producing communities warned on Monday that they would not accept any arrangement capable of derailing their ambition to have an indigene of the area occupy one of the highest positions on the board of the NDDC.
Mr. Achanga said in the letter that they would have preferred the nomination of the current Executive Director Project (EDP) of the Commission, Edikan Eshiet, by elevating him to the post of MD.
“If anything is done to the contrary, it would be a big slap on the oil producing communities,” the communities pointed out, expressing the hope, however, that “what we are hearing is not true.”
The communities said they were piqued particularly by the fact that two of the nominees should not have qualified for consideration for the appointment by virtue of where they come from, while the third, though from one of the oil producing communities, was not an indigene of the major oil producing communities as stipulated by the Act.
Though they said the nomination of Mr. Ekuyok, an indigene of Eastern Obolo, one of the oil producing communities in the state, could be tolerated by the major oil communities, those of Mr. Inyang, an engineer, from Ikot Ekpene Local Government Area, and Mr. Umana from Nsit Ubium Local Government Area, both located outside the oil producing communities, were beyond tolerance.
The NDDC Act 2000 in Part IV Section 12(1) of states that: “There shall be for the Commission, a Managing Director, and two Executive Directors who shall be indigenes of oil producing areas starting with the member states of the Commission with the highest producing quantum of oil and shall rotate amongst member states in the order of producing.”
Efforts to get the Akwa Ibom State governor to react to allegations of breach of NDDC guidelines in the nomination were unsuccessful.
The State Commissioner for Information, Aniekan Umanah, did not respond to several calls to his phone. He also did not respond to our text message. The Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Anietie Ukpe, did not also respond to calls and text message from PREMIUM TIMES.
On the insinuations that Mr. Umanah’s nomination was a ploy to distract his governorship ambition, his camp moved swiftly on Monday to denounce the reports, as his spokesperson, Iboro Otongaran, said such should not be taken seriously.
Mr. Otongaran dismissed the report of Mr. Umanah’s nomination and the impact on its political ambition as unfounded and without basis, pointing out that it was similar to the recent one that made the rounds that he (Umanah) had “withdrawn from the governorship race or foresworn his ambition to run for governor in 2015.”
“We want to state categorically that this is yet another lie targeted at the SSG,” Mr. Otongaran, said. “The latest lie comes on the heels of the recent fabrication, since found out by members of the public to be a blatant lie, that the SSG was presented to the President as the state’s PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) gubernatorial candidate for 2015, who rejected and barred him from running for governor.
“We would therefore like to inform members of the public and the numerous supporters of Mr. Umanah that his position about his future has not changed. As he had said many times in the past, at the appropriate time, Mr. Umanah will tell the good people of Akwa Ibom State what his plan is for the future.
“Mr. Umanah is totally committed to the continuing success of the Akpabio administration, and hereby urges every Akwa Ibom man and woman to pray for and contribute in whichever way possible to the enduring success of Akwa Ibom State,” he said.
Please can you give this position to the people choices FRM EDP NDDC
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