Niger Delta rights activist, AnnKio Briggs has come out to say that the present controversies trailing the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC is not about the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Chief Godswill Akpabio, and former Managing Director of the commission, Joy Nunieh, alone.

He recently revealed that the Niger Delta Development Commission is currently plagued by a systemic corruption problem.

According to him, NDDC is the home of corruption right now and the people of the region should stop seeing the commission as a developmental agency.

He added that from the onset, the NDDC was set up not to succeed and the corruption will continue to deny the Niger Delta people the development, justice, and equity they deserve.

His words, “The people involved and controlling the corruption in the NDDC are not majorly Niger Delta people. The Niger Delta people are involved, but the level of corruption has been set up long ago with the creation of the NDDC itself and silently inbuilt in the system.

“The NDDC is not controlled by the Niger Delta people, or from the region. From the word go, the NDDC was set up not to succeed, but to be placed in a position that the people are the ones fighting themselves on behalf of people that are not Niger Deltans.

“The fact that the management of NDDC has to be appointed by any President is one major places where this corruption takes place, as it becomes a political appointment, contrary to its main reason of being setup.

“Even though we are frustrated to the point of saying the Presidential Amnesty Programme, NDDC and Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs should be scrapped, it does not really mean to us that it should be scrapped. But changes must be made in how they are being run.

“What we are witnessing today in NDDC is not about Akpabio or Numieh, but an issue of systemic corruption to deny the Niger Delta peoples anything to do with development, justice and equity in the region.”