The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) appears to be the table where States are now scrambling for a seat. Presently comprised of nine States, three more States are jostling to be included as part of NDDC. A bill in the Senate seeks to amend the NDDC Act 2000, to include Lagos, Ogun and Bauchi States. It is sponsored by Senator Olamilekan Adeola (APC: Lagos). The bill has however stirred vehement reactions from current NDDC States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justifying the bill,\nits sponsor, Senator Adeola, stated that the bill is motivated by the fact that\nthe three States have attained the status of oil producing States following the\ndiscovery of crude oil in their domains. In his lead debate, Senator Adeola stated\nthat the idea of proposing the three States is to ensure that they benefit from\nfunds available to oil producing States. The bill is however being resisted\nwith the main arguments against it being that none of these States have\nproximate nexus with the concept of NDDC. They also argue that the bill\ncontradicts the exclusivity of the Niger Delta region which is founded on the\nbasis of geography and the history of degradation of the region as a result of\nexploratory and production activities of oil companies. Currently NDDC States\nenjoy 13% oil revenue derivation payments. A pertinent question remains as to\nif these new arrivals to the \u2018oil producing\u2019 business are merely exploring or\nnow producing oil in commercially viable quantity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NDDC was\ninitially established to address development in oil producing States, including\nissues of environmental degradation arising from oil exploration and production\nactivities. However, the Commission\u2019s activities have been characterised by\nlack of transparency, non-performance and fraught with allegations of financial\nmisappropriations, all of which impede on the purpose and projected impact of\nits establishment. In spite of these, some State governments appear more interested\nin partaking of what has remained a huge\nportion of Nigeria\u2019s \u2018national cake\u2019 over several decades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It would seem that\nsuccessive government administrations have only been paying lip service to the much\ndiscussed topic of economic diversification. The Nigerian government is still\nlargely focused on oil exploration and\nproduction in an era when nations are investing in research for sustainable\nenergy and pursuing initiatives to address global warming, to which the use of\nfossil fuel is a main contributor. Furthermore, the Nigerian oil industry\nrequires a major rejig to address the festering issues of fuel subsidy and\nrefineries. It is expected that the Petroleum Industry Act touted by industry\nexperts as a game changer will reposition oil production and supply of refined\nproducts in the most beneficial way for the country and its citizens. However,\nthis does not take away the need to explore the potential of the large deposits\nof Nigeria\u2019s several other natural resources, in line with global developments.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) appears to be the table where States are now scrambling for a seat. Presently comprised of nine States, three more States are jostling to be included as part of NDDC. A bill in the Senate seeks to amend the NDDC Act 2000, to include Lagos, Ogun and Bauchi States. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[439,416],"class_list":["post-2380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-every-state-wants-to-be-in-nddc","tag-suddenly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2385,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380\/revisions\/2385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}