ABSTRACT
The Federal Government established the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to address the long neglected and marginalized region by passing the NDDC Act 2000 as amended into law, with a mandate, vision and mission to proffer a lasting solution to the socio-economic difficulties in the Niger Delta region by transforming the region into economically prosperous, socially stable, environmentally regenerative and politically stable region. The focus of the study “The Role of NDDC in the Sustainable Development of the Niger Delta Region” was conceived to examine the extent of sustainable development achieved in the region in the past nineteen years of its establishment. To examine whether NDDC will be the lasting solution to the Niger Delta development challenges or not, and again to examine whether political interference and control is affecting the commission negatively to deliver on its mandate of developing the region.
The study adopted elite theory as its theoretical framework because the NDDC was established by the political elites, controlled and managed by the elites for selfish interest instead of regional development agenda. The study used field observation and survey methods in gathering quantitative and qualitative data using the questionnaire and interviews as research instruments. The study relied on primary and secondary data in the course of the research. The population of the study is about thirty million (30,000,000) persons but the target population is one thousand, six hundred and eighty (1,680) to reduce the burden, rigors and cost by using cluster/stratified sampling techniques, because there are already pre-existing group in the sample population. There are Niger Delta Region, there are NDDC state divided into minor and major oil producing states that help in choosing two major and one minor oil producing states as the target population strata for the study. The researcher utilized the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) for the coding of data and descriptive statistics for the analysis of quantitative data.
Findings from the study show that the agency has not achieved its objective of transforming the region from underdevelopment into developed region largely due to elite patronage system, politicization of the development process, non-inclusion of the rural people in the management of the agency, there are no-sustainability plan of its projects and programmes to meet the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals in the development agenda, bad corporate governance and political inference, which has given rise to corruption and fraud which has resulted to its poor performance below the expectation of the people. The study recommends inclusion of stakeholders and deliberate sustainable plan, appointment of visionary, resourceful, capable and proven men of integrity in the management and leadership of the agency, restructuring of the agency and punitive measures to those found culpable, will enable the commission achieve its mandate, vision and mission.
