Rift emerges over sack of NDDC boss

Ousted managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission Joy Nunieh has accused the Niger Delta affairs minister Godswill Akpabio of orchestrating her removal from office, but the minister says she was being insubordinate.

Ousted managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission Joy Nunieh has accused the Niger Delta affairs minister Godswill Akpabio of orchestrating her removal from office, but the minister says she was being insubordinate.

Nunieh, a former Acting Managing Director of Interim Management Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission, served as NDDC acting MD between October 29, 2019 to February 28, 2020 before the committee was sacked.

She alleged on the side lines of the Senate investigative hearing probing NDDC’s misappropriation of N40 billion that Akpabio engineered her removal from office for failing to dance to his tunes regarding the spending of the Commission.

Nunieh said, “Nobody makes any payment in NDDC without Godswill Akpabio’s approval. When we first came, on the day of the inauguration, he said to me in the car, ‘Madam MD, if you don’t do what I say, the same pen with which I used to sign your paper is the same pen I’ll use to remove you.”

But reacting to Nunieh’s allegations, Akpabio said the former NDDC MD was removed because of insubordination and for skipping the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

“She was relieved of her appointment because of insubordination,” Akpabio said when he featured on AriseTV News Saturday night.

“My ministry which supervises her wrote several letters to her but she never responded to one,” he added.

The minister said he had received petitions from anti-corruption agency that Nunieh didn’t have the requisite qualifications to work as acting MD of a commission.

He said Nunieh was removed after the discovery that there was no record in the national headquarters of NYSC to prove her participation in the scheme.

“We have written to her to explain but she had not responded,” Akpabio added.

‘Accept your dismissal graciously’

Meanwhile, Donu Kogbara, a former media adviser to Nunieh, has urged her to accept her dismissal graciously.

In a interview with newsmen on her working experience with the former NDDC boss, Kabara said, “If they allow you to go with all your emoluments, you should just thank God and go in a gracious and dignified way.

“Even if you feel that you would not have been removed had it been you were in a better term with certain people, the fact is, you have played into the hands of those who don’t want you around.

“Even those who do want you around will have a problem retaining you because there is clear evidence that you have broken the law or failed to do something critical like youth service.

“My wish for her is, she should accept her dismissal graciously.”