The Interview Editors
While the impoverished people of the Niger Delta may be flogging the streets with placards of how the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has failed them, the region’s elite in Abuja has no plan to stop milking the commission anytime soon.
It has come to light, for example, that the senators alleged to have cornered over 300 contracts between them, for example, are James Manager and Peter Nwaoboshi. But that’s not all.
The fight over the control of the Board and Management of the NDDC has pitched Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, Adams Oshiomhole and Godswill Akpabio on one side, against Rotimi Amaechi, on the other.
After President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in, the Omo-Agege group visited him as “the authentic leaders” of the Niger Delta and begged him to hand over the NDDC to them for “restructuring” and “repositioning.”
The request, meant to spite Amaechi, claimed its casualties, among them the MD, and also the Chairman, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba.
Later when Akpabio became Minister of the Niger Delta Ministry, he raised his game; he went behind the group to meet Buhari with a request to carry out a forensic audit of the NDDC, a matter he did not previously discuss with his group.
It emerged later that the forensic audit is a façade to plant his own people in NDDC!
Bayelsa: Is Rotimi Amaechi having the last laugh?
One man conspicuously absent at Tuesday’s governorship election grand rally of the APC in Yenagoa, was the Minister of Transport and former Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi.
The minister who was the anchorman of the APC in the 2015 general elections, has had his influence substantially whittled down after the 2019 elections.
While Timipre Silva, Adams Oshiomhole, Godswill Akpabio and Ovie Omo-Agege were jumping up and down the stage in Yenagoa, Amaechi was visibly absent.
Sources close to the ministers said the ruling of the Federal High Court, Bayelsa, disqualifying the APC candidate and the jiggery pokery following the appeal, has left Amaechi reeling with laughter!
“It won’t be long,” the source said, “before we know who the leaders and impostors are.”
New Oil Act May Cost IOCs $2.7bn
The Deep Offshore and Inland Basin PSC Act, which took a record 26 days from start to finish, may result in a loss of value of $2.7bn of the remaining life of the assets of the IOCs with assets in deep water or a value reduction of 18 per cent, according to a report by Wood Mackenzie, a commercial intelligence firm.
The report said even though the PSC Act is not as bad as feared, deep water investors all over the world need to ensure that their projects can withstand low oil prices of between $50-55bbl, given the recent price fluctuations and long-term forecast of declining demand.
The report also cited new and less cumbersome exploratory opportunities in other parts of the world as what deep water investors may also need to consider going forward.
Nigeria is expected to realise an additional revenue of at least $500m and $1b between 2020 and 2021 as a result of the amendment of the PSC Act.
