Budget: Niger Delta leaders to meet Yar’Adua

A team of Niger Delta leaders will soon meet with President Umaru Yar’Adua to protest the N77bn budgetary allocations to the Niger Delta Development Commission and the newly created Ministry of Niger Delta for 2009.


The delegation, according to the Ijaw National Leader, Chief Edwin Clark, will include members of the National Assembly from the region and the 45-man Technical Committee on Niger Delta.


A meeting of notable leaders in the region is to be convened to consider the points that would be presented before the President.

Clark, a former minister of Information, told one of our correspondents on Monday that the allocations to the NDDC and the Niger Delta ministry were unacceptable to the people of the region.


He spoke just as four senators from the region — Victor Ndoma-Egba; Thomson Sekibo, Aloysius Etuk, and Nimi Barigha-Amange — also protested the allocations to the ministry and the commission.


In the budget presented to the National Assembly last week, N27bn was earmarked for the NDDC and N50bn for the new ministry.

The combined sum is N2bn less than the N79bn allocated to the NDDC alone in the 2008 budget.


Clark, who spoke through the telephone, said he was under pressure from across the region to raise the team to formally register the region’s displeasure with the allocations before the President.


He said, “A team of prominent Niger Delta leaders, comprising members of the National Assembly and the Technical Committee on Niger Delta, is to meet with the President on the 2009 budget as it affects the Niger Delta. The people of the Niger Delta are not happy over the provisions made for NDDC and the ministry.

“But the team will be raised at a meeting being coordinated by the Niger Delta Elders and Leaders Forum. The meeting will be attended by members of the National Assembly and the technical committee. Many people from the states of Niger Delta have been talking to me to convene the meeting to discuss the 2009 budget as it affects us in the region.


“We are going to look into the allocations to the Niger Delta through the NDDC and the ministry. We are going to examine the budget thoroughly and at the end of the day we are going to raise a committee to meet with the President over our misgivings with the budget.”


Clark, who did not disclose the exact date and venue of the meeting, said the budgetary provisions for the region were grossly inadequate to tackle the developmental needs of the area.


He, however, urged Yar’Adua to review the allocation to the ministry from N50bn to a minimum of N87bn.

The Ijaw leader, who said N87bn translated to about three per cent of the N2.9tn budget, argued that the Niger Delta was being unfairly treated by the Federal Government through the reduction of its capital votes.


He also asked that the over N200bn outstanding entitlements of NDDC be released to enable the commission realise its mandate.


The former minister said that the global economic recession and slide in the prices of crude oil were not enough reasons for the Federal Government to substantially reduce the budgetary allocation to the region.

Meanwhile, Senators Ndoma-Egba, Sekibo, Etuk, and Barigha-Amange have argued that the Federal Government was playing smart by moving part of the allocation of the NDDC to the ministry of the Niger Delta.

The senators, who spoke with our correspondents in Abuja on Friday and Sunday, said since the allocation to the NDDC was statutorily based, anything short of it would not be acceptable to the region.

Ndoma-Egba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and the Chairman of the South-South caucus in the Senate, said, “The funding of the NDDC is statutory; as such budgetary allocations to it are by law and the federal government should respect this fact.

“What you have in the 2009 budget is an allocation of N27.12bn for the NDDC and N50bn for the ministry of Niger-Delta.

“My understanding of the decision by the Executive to create a Ministry for the Niger-Delta was to empower it to help in the infrastructural development of the area in addition to, not as a replacement for what the NDDC is doing.

“We ask that the proper thing be done so that it does not appear like you are giving one thing with the right hand while taking it back with the left. This is something that has to be addressed.”


Sekibo who corroborated Ndoma-Egba said the N27bn provision for the agency was tantamount to a deliberate policy to undermine it and stifle development in the oil-rich region.

According to him, it is unimaginable that the commission whose annual allocation in the past averaged between N35bn and N40bn is being given N27bn at a time that the Federal Government proposed a huge national budget of N2. 87tn.

He said that the people of the zone had thought that the creation of the Niger Delta ministry would be a source of additional funding for development of the region. He regretted that the government cleverly slashed the NNDC funds and pushed it to the new ministry.


He said, “Allocations to the NDDC in previous years were not even properly calculated. Since NDDC was inaugurated through the Act setting it up, it has never enjoyed its full allocation not only in terms of releases on paper.

“If the NDDC received N40. 57bn in 2008 in a budget estimate of N2.65tn, it only means that it should receive more in a budget of N2.87tn and cannot get anything less than that.

“Now, this is a clear indication of the mindset of the Nigerian leadership against the Niger-Delta people because NDDC by the statutory provision of section 14 (1) and (2) stipulates that:

“There shall be paid and credited to the fund established pursuant to sub-section (1) of this section (a) From the Federal Government the equivalent of 15 percent of the total monthly statutory allocations due to member states of the commission from the Federation Account; this being the contribution of the Federal Government to the commission.”

Sekibo also lamented that outstanding payments due to the commission from previous years was still not being talked about.

He said, “We have spoken on the floor of the Senate (about arrears owed NDDC) and President Yar’Adua has heard of it and the National Assembly Committees on Appropriations have heard of it; but you see, it remains the same Nigerian problem.

“It is only when Nigerians take every region of this country as part of them that the fight for justice for the people that are being deprived every day will be meaningful.”

Etuk also described the N27.12bn allocation to the NDDC in the 2009 budget as unacceptable.

He argued that the creation of the Niger Delta ministry should not be a misfortune for the NDCC which was created by an Act of the Parliament.

“To allow the existence of the Niger Delta ministry to affect the allocation to the NDDC is unacceptable and in bad faith,” the senator said.

He argued that the 2009 budget for the Niger Delta suggested that the creation of the ministry was an act of deceit.

“If the NDDC money is given to the Ministry of the Niger Delta, then you have only crossed your legs, you are not moving forward. You have told the people that you are moving forward, but you have merely turned to the left,” he said.


Barigha-Amange is of the view that the presentation of the 2009 budget as it affects the Niger Delta has created confusion in the functions of the new ministry and the NDDC.

According to him, the submission of the budget to the National Assembly by the President in December might make the implementation of Niger Delta projects difficult.