Timi Alaibe

An African proverb says: when a broom is held together, it is difficult to break it. There is no better validation for this wise saying than the current development challenges facing the Niger Delta region and it 30 million people.

For a very long time, development of this very critical region was undertaken in an unplanned haphazard manner, by different stakeholders, working in isolation and, sometimes, in deliberate preclusion of the other stakeholders. The result have been the prevalent poverty, high unemployment, deteriorated physical infrastructures, devastated environment, high mortality rates and unfortunate rise in ignorance and disease that were ravaging the region.

The region, also, became the graveyard of many abandoned projects, undertaken by past intervention agencies that lacked the political will and adequate funding, as well as a broad-based and integrated plan to fully undertake, as had been prescribed by the Willinks’ Commission over fifty years ago, the sustainable development of a region that, ironically, provides over 60 per cent on Nigeria’s resources. In some areas, there were, also, duplication of projects that were under utilised, while pressing community needs which, otherwise, would have been served, were left unattended to.

Today, these failures have impacted not only on the Niger Delta in physical terms, it has impacted adversely on the psyche and mentality of the people, whose long years of frustrations, occasioned by deprivation and poverty, have metamorphosed into habitual mistrust, lack of confidence in government and intervention agencies, anger and widespread agitation.

It is in response to – and the abiding commitment to vigorously and speedily tackle – these mounting challenges (economic, socio-political, environmental and infrastructural), that President Olusegun Obasanjo established the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC. And because the Commission was founded on sincere commitment and vision, as well as a deep knowledge of the modern dynamics demands of development, part of its function has been to facilitate the development of, first of all, a regional Master Plan, and secondly, but equally vital, to facilitate the building of cooperation, collaboration and healthy partnership among all relevant stakeholders in the region. To work together is to build together. To work alone is to dissipate energy and waste scarce resources, needed for the enormous job which we have all been called to do.

The NDDC/UBA Partnership is a great testimony of what can be accomplished in this regard. And that we are gathered here today, to inaugurate the Joint Project Team of these two organisations is further testimony that, indeed, there is commitment, there is sincerity of purpose, there is shared responsibility in the affairs of the Niger Delta region, and, above all, there is shared vision on what we must do to deliver to our people the development they have for so long desired, but which had remained, before now, largely elusive.

I want to use this opportunity to congratulate and thank my brother, Mr. Tony Elumelu, the Group Managing Director of UBA Plc, whose presence here, despite a very challenging and hectic schedule, revalidates his commitment to excellence, to effective and involved leadership, and the bank’s resolve to truly and fully work with us in the NDDC to ensure the successful implementation of the Niger Delta Regional Development Master Plan. I want to also thank the Management of the NDDC for ensuring that Mr. President’s vision of integrated development is realised.

To members of the Joint Project Team, I want to deliver a simple charge, one which holds great meaning to us here and to other partners who we must reach, whether in the private or public sector, to work with the NDDC under the Partners for Sustainable Development (PSD) Forum: the future of the Niger Delta region lies with us. What we achieve with this partnership, which is the first we are undergoing since the launching, on March 27th, 2007, of the Master Plan, will help lay the foundation for what we will achieve with other equally vital partnerships with other key stakeholders in the region. It also helps lay the foundation for the successful implementation of the Master Plan.

I say this with belief, conviction and understanding. We hold in our hands the opportunity to truly serve our people and offer them the quality of life that they truly deserve. They have provided immeasurable well-being to this country, through the mineral and human resources that the region is blessed with. Yet, they have seen their traditional livelihoods wasted, their environment despoiled, their children lose their belief and sense of hope, their future darkened by gathering clouds of wasted dreams. I believe, as I am sure you all do, that they deserve better, their well-being served as they have served the national good.

So, today, I charge you to hold this sacrosanct and give the best of your well-known competences, to discharge of your responsibilities well and do credit to your respective organisations, and to the good people of the Niger Delta region. I charge you to work well within the prescriptions and demands of the Memorandum of Understanding which we will sign today, to the best of your abilities, to make this partnership realise its full promise and potential. The future of the Niger Delta region depends, to a very large extent, on this cooperation and collaboration, and what it will bring to our respective organisations, and towards the successful implementation of the Master Plan.

It becomes your duty, therefore, to produce for this partnership a credible set of programmes and projects, distilled from the Master Plan and its Implementation Guidelines, which will help in uplifting the people and the region. These bankable projects must, of necessity, have the capacity to touch the lives of the people quickly and decisively, in such areas as poverty alleviation, job creation, environmental remediation, healthcare, education and social re-orientation and re-integration. These programmes and projects must, therefore, help take the people away, from destructive to constructive engagement. The people of the Niger Delta region are known, through history, to be hospitable and not hostile, hardworking and not docile, and we must restore both hope and rebuild their humanity.

I believe this can be achieved. We have in the Master Plan a true reflection of the needs, hopes, aspirations and expectations of the people of the Niger Delta region. It is the people’s Plan for Emancipation. It is the people’s vision and we owe it to them, having distilled this Master Plan from their collective expressions of hope and faith in us, to make it work.

On that note, I want formally welcome you all to this important inauguration and to wish you all God’s guidance as you discharge your duties, as well as his continual blessings.

Being Remarks at the Inauguration of the Joint Project Team of the NDDC/UBA Partnership, in Abuja.