President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to pay the fees and allowances of stranded students on the scholarship of the agency studying abroad.
The President gave the order following the protest of the students on the street of London on Monday. The Students had gathered at the Nigeria’s High Commission in London carrying different placards and urging the payment of their tuition to prevent deportation.
A statement signed by the NDDC Director, Corporate Affairs, Charles Odili, on Tuesday said the President had directed the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to pay the money following the protest of the students.
Odili , who said the students would be paid by the end of the week, explained that the delay was caused by the sudden death of Chief Ibanga Etang, the then Acting Executive Director, Finance and Administration, EDFA, of the Commission in May.
READ ALSO: We now beg for food, NDDC scholars cry out on London Street
He said: “Under the Commission’s finance protocol, only the Executive Director (Finance) and the Executive Director (Projects) can sign for the release of funds from the Commission’s domiciliary accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“With the death of Chief Etang, the remittance has to await the appointment of a new EDFA. Senator Akpabio, the Honourable Minister, said President Buhari who has been briefed on the protest by students at the Nigerian High Commission in London, has ordered that all stops be pulled to pay the students by the end of this week. We expect a new EDFA to be appointed this week. As soon as that is done, they would all be paid.”
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READ ALSO: Akpabio Links Kalu, Ibori, Uduaghan, others to NDDC Contracts
Speaking on the list of NDDC contracts recently submitted to the National Assembly, Odili said the Interim Management Committee of the Commission stands by the list. He said the names were contained in 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,” he explained.
He said that prominent indigenes of the Niger Delta whose names were on the list should not panic as the commission had discovered that people used their names to secure contracts, adding that the ongoing forensic audit would unearth the persons behind the contracts.
He clarified that 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.
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