The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has revealed that the list of contract beneficiaries issued by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, is authentic and was not compiled by the Honourable Minister.
Prominent politicians like Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia), James Ibori (Delta), Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta) and Senator Peter Nwaoboshi are included in the list.
Though some of the politicians listed have denied being awarded NDDC contracts, the NDDC has enjoined them not to panic as it has been discovered that some people used their names to get the contracts.
While talking about the list, the Director of Corporate Affairs of NDDC, Charles Odili disclosed that the list was part of the documents submitted to its forensic auditors and added that there were other lists of emergency project contracts that were awarded in 2017 and 2019 not forwarded to the National Assembly.
Odili also disclosed that a case of 250 contracts which were signed for and received in one day by someone on behalf of National Assembly members was not included in the list.
He expressed optimism that the ongoing forensic audit would unearth people behind the contracts and also revealed that the commission has put in place 185 media support experts to detect the site of each project captured in its books for verification by the forensic auditors.
Odili said: “The Interim Management Committee of the commission stands by the list which came from files already in the possession of the forensic auditors.
“It is not an Akpabio list but the NDDC’s list; the list is part of the volume of 8,000 documents already handed over to the forensic auditors.
“Prominent indigenes of the Niger Delta whose names were on the list should not panic as the commission knew that people used the names of prominent persons in the region to secure contracts, and the ongoing forensic audit would unearth those behind the contracts.
“(The) intention of the list was to expose committee chairmen in the national assembly who used fronts to collect contracts from the commission, some of which were never executed.”
