Group under the auspices of Niger Delta Unity Movement has responded to Rita Lori and two others over legal tussle on the appointment of Olorogun Bernard Okumagba as Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) boss.
President of the Movement, Mr Timi Ebiowei, described as selfish the demand by Mrs Rita-Lori Ogbebor, that President Muhammadu Buhari appointed an Itsekiri as managing director of the NDDC.
According to a press statement, Ebiowei, who was reacting to a suit filed by Mrs Ogbebor, said she was wrong to demand the MD position for the Itsekiri alone when it was not the only ethnic group in Delta South Senatorial District to which the position has been given in the person of Mr Bernard Okumagba, who he said is eminently qualified for the job.
Ebiowei, an Ijaw, described the opposition to Okumagba by Mrs Ogbebor as driven solely by ethnic considerations as evidenced in her position that the court direct the president to appoint an Itsekiri to the position.
In the suit seeking to force the hand of the president, the applicants including Mrs Ogbebor, are asking the court to grant an “order directing the 1st defendant (President Buhari) to appoint an Itsekiri indigene as the Managing Director” of the NDDC.
Ebiowei said the suit has finally unmasked the real intention of the opposition to Okumagba as ethnic by those he described as ‘appointment contractors’, noting that Mrs Ogbebor had stated in an earlier press statement that she allegedly had a list of potential Itsekiri nominees for the NDDC.
The Ijaw activist said that the NDDC does not belong to any ethnic group but covers the entire oil producing Niger Delta region, ‘therefore nobody should attempt to play God on appointments’.
The President added that the NDDC law was very clear on those qualified to head the commission and the appointment of Okumagba was very much in line with the law.
The Niger Delta Unity Movement expressed disappointment that people like “Mrs Ogbebor are bringing ethnic colouration into the appointments at a time when the people of the Warri area in particular and Delta State in general are trying to consolidate on peace for development.”
Ebiowei said Mrs Ogbebor and her cohorts should not allow the peace that has reigned in the Warri area and Delta State for some time now to be disturbed on account of their selfish desires.
He noted that “the Itsekiris already enjoy two high profile appointments in the current administration in that of Professor Itse Sagay who is Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Anti-Corruption and the latest appointment of Mr Bismarck Rewane into the influential Presidential Council of Economic Advisers, neither of which has been opposed by other tribes in the senatorial zone or in Delta State as a whole.”
Ebiowei added that “the appointment of Mr Bernard Okumagba is the first and only appointment given to the Urhobos of Delta South Senatorial District and any attempt to scuttle it will be reopening old wounds.”
