In order to increase the capacity of women and young people in the Niger Delta region, the Niger Delta Development Commission, or NDDC, has promised to start programmes and programmes in this area.
The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, stated that the Commission was focused on forming strategic alliances with the women and youths of Nigeria’s oil-rich region during an interactive meeting with women leaders from various ethnic backgrounds and key stakeholders in the Niger Delta region at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, the capital of the state of Rivers.
“Our development projects are focused on women in particular. The young people have been met and spoken with. We intend to speak with the women.
In order to engage with all stakeholders in the formation of the Commission’s overall strategy for the development of the region, he informed the women leaders that the NDDC would reach out to them as crucial stakeholders in the Niger Delta region.
We might not comprehend the path that our people want to go until we offer all of our leaders—political, traditional, youth, women, and other leaders in the Niger Delta—the platform and opportunity to discuss what our future should be.
The women leaders felt ignored and excluded from the Commission’s operations during the recent Partners for Sustainable Development Forum NDDC 2024 Budget of Reconstruction Conference in Uyo, according to Ogbuku. He said that the absence of women’s organisations from the meeting was not intentional and promised that this error would never longer occur.
“The women must participate in the Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit that will be place soon. We must give all of our stakeholders a place to share their thoughts for the growth of the Niger Delta. The 2023 Budget will be utilised by the Stakeholders Summit. We should be able to agree upon the areas of priorities based on our existing realities once it has been signed.
“We spoke with the adolescents, and as a result, some wonderful ideas emerged, including HOPE, or Holistic Opportunity Projects of Engagement. We’ll also meet with the women. We will discuss the needs and strategies that will promote all-around development with the women’s organisations.
“We have a contract with KPMG to streamline our internal procedures and support our partners. We met with the French and German development organisations only last week to enable training and create jobs for our women and young people, particularly in the agricultural sector.
The NDDC boss acknowledged that the Commission has struggled with funding, and that this necessitated coming up with novel ideas.This guided our attention on Public, Private Partnership, PPP. Hence, we are open to build a dependable partnership with women groups,” he said.
In order to increase the likelihood of developing productive partnerships with the international community, Ogbuku asked residents of the Niger Delta to stop disparaging the NDDC and the Niger Delta region in general.
Ankio-Briggs, a well-known Niger Delta activist and leader, had earlier praised the NDDC’s leadership style for looking for alternative funding sources for the Commission’s projects through its PPP programme. She added that this initiative will help to address the inconsistencies in the Niger Delta region brought on by underdevelopment.
“We applaud KPMG’s recent engagement to provide the Commission with advisory services on international best practises in Corporate governance culture and internal processes.”
Briggs bemoaned that the NDDC was owed enormous sums that reached the trillion-naira mark, which was slowing down the rate of development. He also said that the Commission cannot function efficiently in the face of indebtedness.
“The ladies of the Niger Delta area urge on Mr. President to keep in mind that the management of the NDDC was without a meaningful Board for a significant portion of the last eight years, and that this was not in the best interests of the Niger Delta people for whom the agency was established. We thus implore Mr. President to appoint Dr. Samuel Ogbuku as the chairman of the board of the NDDC.
