The 21st Century Youth of Niger Delta and Agitators with Conscience, CYNDAC, yesterday, said the era some National Assembly members from the Niger Delta and their collaborators bamboozled officials and hand-picked choice jobs at the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, without executing them, was over.

Leader of the group, self-styled ‘General’ Izon Ibe, who, in a statement, said the agitators were, however, not against the oversight function of the National Assembly on NDDC, but the underhand tactics being employed.

The group said: “We frown at the underhand tactics of the National Assembly in its oversight function on the NDDC. For a National Assembly, whose 2020 Budget is greater than the 2020 Budget for Health and Education sectors in the country, the moral high ground for checking other MDAs in the country has no basis.

“For an institution, which has been taking at least a trillion every year for constituency projects for years without anything to show for it, this moral high ground is faulty.

“We want to tell members of the National Assembly from the Niger Delta and their cohorts that the era where they cherry-pick choice jobs from the commission and are paid upfront is over. The greed of collecting jumbo salaries and intimidating and blackmailing the leadership of the commission for choice jobs, without execution is no longer tenable.

“We urge the Minister of Niger Delta, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and the acting Managing Director of NDDC, Professor Keme Pondei, to be steadfast in their quest to audit and reposition the commission. We assure them that the work of dark forces will not prevail, as the youths of the Niger Delta are solidly with them.

“The Niger Delta is bedeviled with a lot of socio-economic problems. Why is the focus of the Senate on NDDC only? The Ogoni Clean-Up is still a mirage; the financial autonomy of the local governments, expected to free local government funds for development, instead of being serially pilfered by state executives, is fermenting in the said hallowed chambers with a loud silence from the National Assembly.

“Boko Haram members who murdered people are being pardoned and reintegrated into the society, yet our own ex-militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, whose facilities were legitimately purchased and used as the nucleus for the take-off of the Nigeria Maritime University, NMU, Okerenkoko, Delta State, is still seen as an enemy of government, without a reason. Yet, our senators see and do nothing concerning these glaring injustices.”