Greg Odogwu The visit of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Right to the new Board Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Victor Ndoma-Egba, last Tuesday in Abuja, may have shown a strong signal that the new chairman is actually set to change the NDDC story. Since the new board and management of the commission were inaugurated three weeks ago, I have waited with baited breath to see whether a new order would emerge or it would be business as usual. The image of the NDDC is so battered that one cannot even start to imagine how the intervention agency can be said to have been founded exclusively for the development of a resource-‘cursed’ region. In the Niger Delta, poverty is endemic. For the 15 years of its existence, NDDC has proved to be a fiscal siphon for the elite. The roads are said to be build, yet there is no road. The boreholes are signed off as completed, and the people continue to drink contaminated water. Number of jobs created is bandied, yet the youths are idol. There can be no better description of the abysmal state of things than the one given by Ndoma-Egba himself at his swearing in ceremony. “Out there, I must say it very frankly, the image of the NDDC is that of a contract awarding silos, a contract awarding factory. I went to see a very senior brother the other day and he referred to me as the Chairman of the other stock exchange and I said to him, which stock exchange, Sir? He said people trade in the NDDC contracts the same way they trade in shares. I don’t think that was a very edifying remark.” The new chairman then promised “to change the song, to change the narrative” of the NDDC. He said the new leadership of the commission would refocus the organisation and drive a rebranding process that would ensure that they became more innovative and efficient. However, knowing the true nature of the problem of the Niger Delta, I waited to see the strategy that the chairman would deploy to accomplish this new vision. I told myself that his first public utterance and/or assignment as the new Board Chairman would give a definite pointer to his policy thrust. Call it a hunch, but I knew that leaders often betray their most guarded strategies in their moments of “busy-ness”. Evidence abounds of Nigerian leaders who betrayed their policy directions while asked innocent questions in neutral environments. All it takes is just a matter of patiently waiting and carefully watching. Just like a Freudian slip, it usually happens. Then, last Tuesday, the chairman had his first public function as he received the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a quasi-judicial body tasked with promoting and protecting human rights and collective rights throughout the African continent as well as interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and considering individual complaints of violations of the Charter. The leader of the delegation was Mrs Lucy Asuagbor, who is the commissioner in charge of Uganda, Nigeria, Benin, Rwanda and Malawi. According to the commissioner, the ACHPR’s visit was routine, in their duty to protect and promote human rights on the continent. She said they were in Nigeria to evaluate compliance, and to engage the authorities. She noted that because of the environmental issues in the Niger Delta, they wanted to talk to the authorities and see what plans they had. The team stated that it wanted to ensure there were effective complaints and access to justice mechanisms in the region; and that the system entrenched internationally accepted standard operations. The meeting was closed to the media, but when they came out to talk to the press, Ndoma-Egba laconically stated, “Environment has an impact on human rights. The NDDC is about the environment. The commission holds the government to standards. We have just been inaugurated and so we are in the process of stock-taking. We are still being briefed but one assurance I want to give is that we will be telling a new story in the Niger Delta region. We envisage a region that is fully developed and integrated with an economy of its own. The key thing is judicious use of what is available.” Now I am thinking, perhaps, Ndoma-Egba is trying to tell us that environmental justice will be a major focus of his NDDC administration; and, that energy-efficiency is going to be given its due attention; and then, that the envisaged “new NDDC” shall have the people in mind, more than vested interests. If the former Senate Leader would actually take this route, then we can be rest assured that “fresh air” has come for the Niger Delta. The environment is not an abstract entity. It has a soul of its own. In the region, her soul is ripped apart daily, and stamped upon by leaders who have sworn to protect the plagued people of the region. This is majorly because the NDDC has a totally different philosophy of development. It never recognises that development is not just about erecting schools, roads and hospitals. It is about social and environmental justice. And because it has missed this point, it is now fraught with abandoned projects. I remember a conversation I once had with the renowned human rights lawyer, Femi Falana. He said that the bulk of the complaints he got as a human rights lawyer was on environmental rights abuse, which are mostly from the Niger Delta region laden with environmental degradation and pollution. He said that from experience, he now deployed the strategy of using the human rights window instead of the normal legal structures of the land. This is because the country’s judicial system is so poor that a case filed via the courts can go on for more than 25 years, in this way effectively denying the poor Nigerians justice. When I asked him what Nigerians who found themselves treated unfairly in matters of the environment should do, he simply advised that they should take their grievances to the Human Rights Commission because Article 24 of the African Charter has a provision that covers that. When I consulted the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (also known as the Banjul Charter), the following is what I saw under Article 24: “All peoples shall have the right to a general satisfactory environment favourable to their development.” Chapter 1 Article 21, also states: “All peoples shall freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources. The free disposal of wealth and natural resources shall be exercised without prejudice to the obligation of promoting international economic cooperation based on mutual respect, equitable exchange and principles of international law.” This is where the ACHPR intervention comes in. The NDDC should find a way to dovetail its operations and projects towards environmental justice. Development is not only in infrastructure; it could also be in capacity building, and in ensuring that the right mechanisms are established to address the existing and emerging environmental concerns. It is my hope that the intelligence, experience and vast resources already demonstrated by Ndoma-Egba in service to his people should be deployed for this onerous task ahead. --Roluyo Hammed and Rabiu Wasiu contributed reporting.