Is there still any justification for Niger Deltans to lament over Marginalization? Ezekiel Kagbala

 Is there still any justification for Niger Delta People to lament over Marginalisation?

In the face of terrible administrative imbalance born out of corruption that has obliterated the Developmental future of the region Who is to blame?

AT least N1.534 trillion has been received by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) since its inception in 2001.

This amount was allocated to the NDDC for expenditures on projects to reverse the huge infrastructural deficit in the nine Niger Delta states as a result of decades of government’s neglect and environmental degradation by oil exploration companies. However, the development crises that impact the oil-rich region with an estimated population of 46.8 million people remain unresolved. Expectedly, concerns are growing about the utilisation of the funds accrued to the Commission over the years.

10-Year Revenue of N1.413 trillion from 2007-2016

Two reports by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) covering a period of 10 years have revealed that the Commission received a total of N1.413 trillion. The Fiscal Allocation and Statutory Disbursement (FASD) documents reveal that the Commission received a sum of 593.96 billion naira from mineral and non-mineral sources from 2007 to 2011, and also received 819.81 billion naira between 2012 to 2016. These, ten years (2007-2016) summed up to N1,413.77 billion (or N1.413 trillion).

10-Year Expenditure of N3.03 trillion from 2007-2016

For expenditure in the same 10-year period, the reported value is N961.94 billion from 2007-2011, in addition to N932.632 billion and $6.107 billion spent between 2012 to 2016. For the latter 5-year period, the 6.107 billion expenditure in US dollars was converted to Naira at a conservative average of N186/$1 for the 5-year period. This gave a Naira exchange value of N1,136 billion, which was added to the N932,632 billion reported, to arrive at the N2,068 billion for the period of 2012 to 2016. Hence, DATAPHYTE’s conservative estimate for the total expenditure for the ten years is computed to be N3,030.57 billion (or N3.03 trillion).

10-Year Expenditure surpasses Revenue in the same period (2007-2016)

Following this computation, we tried to calculate the difference between revenue and expenditure for the 10 year period, we got a negative difference of N1,616.80 billion (i.e N3030.57 billion minus N1413.77 billion). This is shown below:

Period Revenue (N’Bn) Expenditure (N’Bn) Source

2001 – 2004 121.05       ?? NDRMP

2007 – 2011 593.96 961.94 FASD

2012 – 2016 819.81 2,068.63 FASD

Total (2007 to 2016) 1,413.77 3,030.57

Total (2001 to 2016) less 2005-2006 1,534.823

It is also surprising to find out from the recently constituted interim management of the Commission that the pending NDDC Interim Payment Certificates are worth over N3 trillion. That is, “what the NDDC owes these phantom contractors”.

This suggests one of two things: that NDDC is deliberately running a deficit budget OR the Commission has not done full disclosure of its revenue to NEITI auditors and the undisclosed amount is over 3 trillion naira. The latter seems more plausible considering a PREMIUM TIMES report that Igo Weli, the General Manager of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) disclosed his company and its partners have remitted about $2 billion to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in 16 years. If only SPDC remitted about $2 billion, there is a high potential, ten of billions of dollars have accrued to NDDC from the remittances of other big oil and gas companies institutions.

Revenue from Inception in 2001 to 2016 (less 2005 and 2006)

In accounting for the NDDC’s revenue from inception in 2001, there were six years of revenue (2001-2006) that were not captured in the 2007-2011 FASD report. However, DATAPHYTE found a revenue of N121.05 billion that the Commission received between 2001 – 2004. The data as reported in Chapter 6 of the Niger Delta Regional Development Master Plan (NDRMP) showed that NDDC received a total of $1billion ($1,000,768,000) between 2001 and 2004. At a moderate average exchange rate put at N120/$1 during the period, this amounts to N121.05 billion as accrued revenue between 2001 and 2004.

When this 121.05 billion naira revenue figure is added to the receipts (N1.413 trillion) reported by NEITI for 2007 to 2016, the total from 2001 to 2016 totaled N1.534 trillion.