Nwaoboshi Was Collecting N1b Monthly From NDDC As Senate C’ttee Chair – Group Alleges

A coalition of groups, which styled itself as Civil Society Groups has alleged that the Chairman, Senate Committee on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Senator Peter Nwaoboshi was receiving N1 billion monthly from the NDDC as senate committee chairman.

The groups alleged that Nwaoboshi often made the demand on NDDC to facilitate its budgets but where the money was not paid, he purportedly demand for contracts until recently when he was stopped by the current interim management committee of the NDDC.

For this reasons, the groups is calling for the prosecution of Nwaoboshi and demanding that he step aside as Senate Committee Chairman on NDDC as an interested party in NDDC’s affairs to allow for unfettered and thorough Forensic Audit of the commission.

This was contained in a press statement made available to newsmen on Thursday.

But Nwaoboshi, in his reaction said that he has done no wrong to warrant the call for his resignation as senate committee chairman on NDDC or his prosecution.

National Convener of the Civil Society Groups, Comr. Solomon Adodo who signed the statement said; “We are here to cry out against the serial gang rape of our commonwealth and crude deprivations of the Niger Delta people orchestrated by a handful of fiendish self serving elites in the region.

The statement reads, “For the records a lot of fraudulent acts of financial graft have been unearthed. Incontrovertible facts show that some Senators from the Niger Delta region have held the NDDC by the jugular and consistently bled the Commission.

“Particularly, the Senate Committee Chairman on NDDC – Sen. Peter Nwaoboshi – has been making outrageous demands from the NDDC and when the Board could not meet these demands through a normal process, the budget of the Commission for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019 were not sent to the National Assembly and in its place the NDDC Management was intimidated into awarding emergency contracts only for three years thereby abandoning the Niger Delta Development Plan and Legacy Projects.

“In the process, the Senate Committee Chairman was awarded a total of one thousand contracts which he claimed he shared to Senators.

“The salient question arises to wit, should the contracts be shared among Senators or awarded to competent contractors?

“The Senate Committee Chairman on NDDC therefore blatantly raped the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and abused the NDDC Act.”

The group added; “Let it be noted that these emergency project were not executed while the monies meant for the projects were pocketed even though the said contracts were awarded at very highly inflated sums.

“Therefore, nothing is on ground to justify all the huge expenditure of the Niger Delta Development Commission so far. For the said years of 2017, 2018 and 2019, over one trillion naira has been expended on these so called emergency projects without budgetary provisions or even actual execution of the projects.

“This is a monumental fraud that must not be swept under the carpet. We also have it on authoritative records that Sen. Nwaoboshi was receiving the sum of one billion naira monthly from the LNG funds of NDDC until this sacrilegious ritual was stopped by the Interim Management Committee.

“All these incontrovertible findings are pointers to the fact that Sen. Nwaoboshi is an interested Party thereby invalidating the screening exercise which he conducted in a very biased manner.”

“On the heels of these developments, we herein demand that the Senate should invalidate the screening of the NDDC Board conducted by the Sen. Peter Nwaoboshi Committee owing to the fact that he is an interested party who nursed strong bias to protect his interests.

“We humbly call on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately dissolve the recently screened NDDC Board nominees to allow for the unfettered forensic audit of NDDC under the watch of the Interim Management Committee.

“While we have it on authority that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have carried out thorough investigation of Sen. Peter Nwaoboshi’s activities at NDDC, we urge the anti graft Agency to commence his immediate prosecution alongside all other culprits in the NDDC gang rape and heist.

“Let it be noted that this is the most significant singular phase of the war against corruption and we must maintain eternal vigilance to ensure that there are no compromises.”

But Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, Chairman House Committee on NDDC debunked the allegations made by the Civil Society Groups, saying that the allegations are unfounded and baseless

Reacting through his Special Assistant on Legislative Matters, Lukas Igbonoba, Senator Nwaoboshi, described the allegations as “lie from the pit of hell”,

According to him, NDDC has 2017 budget which elapsed in July 2018 and 2018 which elapsed in July 2019 and you know the NDDC budget usually comes separate. So as I speak to you, there is 2017 and 2018 budget of the NDDC.

“So if someone is saying that because someone made demands and that made them not to have 2017 budget, know it is all lies. These are fallacious lies because it is not anchored on truth and it is not even worthy of reply but if you keep quiet for too long, lies can assume resemblance of truth”.

Nwaoboshi challenged anyone who has evidence of one of his job in NDDC to show proof.

He noted that the NDDC just brought forward its 2019 budget last week and the senate is working on it.