CAIRO Ojougboh, the Executive Director in charge of projects at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) says Nigerians would be shocked if the list of persons involved in contract scam at the Commission is released.
Ojougboh who spoke in an interview with the Vanguard noted that the National Assembly picked a sudden interest in the activities of the Interim Management Committee of the NDDC because the lawmakers are culpable.
He particularly said the lawmakers were unsettled by the forensic audit of the NDCC ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“It’s the forensic audit that the President has instituted because the National Assembly is culpable. At the end of the forensic audit, you will see members of the National Assembly….” Ojougboh said.
“A Senator came and said that in the list of 2016 they brought, that he had only six contracts, I said no, that he had more. What he didn’t know is that we did not release the list for 2017 and the one for 2019. If we release it this country will break.”
While elaborating on why he said the country would break, the NDDC top official said the calibre of people involved in the scam would surprise Nigerians.
” Oh because of the people looting, the calibre, the names and people looting the NDDC. And who engineers it? The Chairmen of the NDDC in the senate and House of Representatives in the National Assembly,” he said.
“So, when I explained, I told Mr. President to look, my job here is very simple. Mr. President looks, even if it is the only thing I achieve in my life to make sure that things are put right for the people of the Niger Delta to have the benefit of the NDDC. You can call me any name, you can do anything, you can say anything, I don’t care but I must do the right thing and the right thing is that no one penny will be missing.”
Ojuogboh said the National Assembly has made plans to use constitutional power to sabotage the forensic audit adding that this would be achieved through refusal to sign the budget of the NDDC and through the use of a committee probe.
“The National Assembly sabotaged, through the instrumentality of the Chairmen of the House and Senate, they sabotaged … if you give them to report, they will say you did not bring performance report. We brought everything that they’ve asked us to bring, but they used the budget as the instrument of blackmail,” he added.
However, he insisted that despite the frustration from the National Assembly, the first phase of the forensic audit has begun.
“It has started. Why are we here if it has not? The National Assembly wanted to truncate it, they said they will not pass our budget. You know the forensic audit is in two stages; we have procured the lead auditors and they are at work, they have all the files of all the contracts at the NDDC from inception till date.
“The second stage is to send the various auditors to each of the states, the National Assembly people know that’s where they are culpable so they stopped our budget, but the President said the forensic audit must continue that he will fund it,” he further stated.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via labolade@icirnigeria.org, on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94