Mere mention of forensic audit sends tension rising, anywhere it is mentioned in the Niger Delta. This is because it divides the people into those who desperately support the audit and those who think it can only be over their dead bodies.
This could be that early mention of massive looting and fraud in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) especially by external influencers seemed to define the forensic audit as a scheme that has come to send top leaders to the grave. There were such disclosures as one senator pocketing 300 contracts, collecting full payment for 200, and doing exactly no work. There was a revelation of one person pocketing one billion naira every month for merely seeing statutorily mandated organisations transfer their obligatory sums to the Commission.
There was news of skyrocketing variation of the NDDC permanent building from about N4bn to about N16bn, etc. Many began to call the Commission a cash cow, and later an election-funding agency. The most spurious was that most former executives of the place wanted to be governors of their states, ready with financial war-chests to fight it out.
The notion that the forensic audit was set up to destroy some persons especially political obstacles seemed to give the ‘innocent’ audit a terrible name. Thus, an explosion occurred aimed at blasting the audit to smithereens. Groups suddenly emerged to attack the managers of the forensic audit and to even demand for scrapping of the Commission. To them, it is better to cut down the tree that houses the beehive instead of suffering bee stings, no matter what fruit the tree was carrying.
The Daniel Pondei-led Interim Management Committee (IMC) reacted stoutly by fighting back. Its executive director (projects) who once was a lawmaker and knew in and out of the intrigues and rackets there took them frontally on. It was thus revealed that a racket existed in the National Assembly where the two chairmen that control or oversee the NDDC (Niger Delta affairs) served as ‘contract managers’ for top NASS leaders and members. It was further revealed that a strategy existed whereby before the budget of the Commission is ever approved, a long list of NASS-backed contractors of the Commission must be paid.
As the forensic audit-provoked war raged, the NDDC released list of the companies that were made to be paid by the NDDC on pressure from the NASS committee leaders. This provoked national uproar. The result seemed to be that communicating the forensic audit exercise seems to be the issue. The audit was given the tone of a witch-hunting exercise. Many may have whispered that such communication style could attract more detractors and rather kill the audit scheme instead of enhance it.
Now, a training workshop has just been packaged by a consultant to help design a narrative for the audit. At the seminar, the NDDC made it clear the forensic audit ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari for the Commission is rather a solution to the years of decay and challenges of underdevelopment in the Niger Delta region.
Speaking at the training organized by Clearpoint Communications for 10 communication specialists in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, the NDDC Acting Managing Director, Professor Daniel Pondei, said that the forensic audit followed a request by the governors of the nine Niger Delta States, noting that the aim of the forensic exercise was to highlight the areas of strength and weaknesses of the Commission and not to witch-hunt any group or individual.
Pondei, who was represented by the Director Corporate Affairs, Charles Obi Odili, stated that the audit was sacrosanct because the time had come for the NDDC, which was established in 2000, to offer a lasting solution to the socio-economic challenges of the Niger Delta region, to take a quantum leap into the future as evidenced in other delta regions of the world.
He remarked: “I am happy you are being trained today to give strategic communication support to the forensic audit teams in the nine Niger Delta states and the assignment of the audit team is to evaluate and examine the financial records of the Commission.
“In September last year, when the governors of the Niger Delta States visited the president, Muhammadu Buhari, they highlighted the need for the forensic examination of the account of the NDDC, so that we can see what we have done with what we have received so far. It has come to a point the NDDC needs to know where it stands, not just in the court of public opinion but in the very essence of the organization. That is why this is important, so that we can take positive steps towards getting positive results.
“So, what the exercise would do is that, it would highlight the areas of strength and at the same time point out the various areas of weaknesses. This is very important because it is high time the Niger Delta region took a dynamic leap into the future. Why this project is key is that whenever the Niger Delta is sick, the entire nation would be sick.”
Delivering a paper entitled: ‘The NDDC, Facts, Figures and Falsehood’, the Deputy Director, Corporate Affairs, Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, noted that the Niger Delta region that is the third largest delta region on earth populated by 31.2 million people, was the least developed region in Nigeria.
Amu-Nnadi explained that while the natural resources from the Niger Delta makes Nigeria the 6th largest oil producer in the world, 70 percent of the people in the region live below the poverty line, just as “all indices of development such as education, health, sanitation, job creation, water and other physical infrastructures were far below acceptable standards.”
He said: “To address this unfortunate paradox, the Federal Government established the NDDC through an Act of the National Assembly, the NDDC Act 2000, with the aim to cater for the needs of the nine political states of the Niger Delta region. To implement its obviously wide mandate, the NDDC at inception adopted a two-pronged strategy, an interim action plan under which all projects abandoned would be completed and new ones executed to douse prevalent tension and a regional master plan that will be a roadmap for integrated, long-term development. Over two million patients have been treated in the NDDC Free Healthcare Mission, a figure that far outweighs numbers typically treated by some of the best hospitals yearly.”
Nnadi further noted: “But after many years of failed promises, lingering mistrust has remained one habit that refused to go away. Even people using NDDC facilities and/or projects, such as roads, still say NDDC has done nothing. It is sometimes difficult to get the communities to support and/or partner with government.
“Also, there are serious poor governance issues across the region. Despite receipts by other agencies and project providers, there is serious pressure on the NDDC, due to poor allocation, application and implementation issues. Unfortunately, funding has been a lingering issue and NDDC has not received its full statutory due.
“At this point you may want to ask, after the period of praises for being a solution to the problems of the Niger Delta, what went wrong? How did NDDC go from an agency of hope and promise to one which is being investigated for poor delivery on its mandate? The answer would be that we are in the era of emergency projects, budget strictures and undue political influence.”
In his own presentation, the Deputy Director, Media Relations, Pius Ughakpoteni, discussed what it takes to manage digital public relations and social media for the NDDC forensic audit team.
He stated: “As communications specialists, the most critical part of your job entails assuaging a largely angry and disappointed people and taming voices of discord the genuine intentions of the NDDC forensic audit across the Niger Delta region. To achieve this, you must be subsumed within the overall corporate, departmental strategy and social media plan of the NDDC forensic audit team.”
To enable them function effectively, the communications specialists were presented with laptops, modems and flash drives to achieve key communication objectives for the NDDC forensic audit.
With a new communication objective and new skills, the narrative on the forensic audit may tone down, probably to save it. It may now be communicated as a well-meaning audit that may show how better to do things next time instead of a get-him-down venture. This in itself would have its own burden.
The forensic audit has already been positioned in the minds of Nigerians as a ferreting fire that would expose and in fact is already exposing things and people. The least the people would want to hear are names to what they already knew. Obliterating this expectation may destroy those who have won the hearts of the people by taking hard stance on the audit. Either way, victims must fall as revelations or lack of it take place.
