N2 trillion debt: NDDC administrator’s thugs harassing, intimidating us – Contractors cry out

The protesting indigenous contractors of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) on Thursday decried harassment by thugs and hoodlums stationed at the head office of the Commission in Portharcourt.

The contractors who were owed for projects executed said they have been owed for the past eight to seven years, but alledged that the Interim Administrator, Mr Akwa Effiong has stationed thugs, hoodlums and miscreants to harass the contractors for protesting against unpaid executed projects which is well over N2 trillion.

Speaking on behalf of other protesting contractors, Spokesman for the Niger Delta Indigenous Contractors Association, Chief Dressman Darlinton-Gbolobofa at a press conference in Abuja revealed that some contractors have died as a result of trauma.

They described as devilish, failure to payment off debts despite budgetary provisions, year after year, insisting that they would continue to pursue their legitimate payments at all cost.

The association accused the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio of conspiring with the Interim Administrator to ignore payments and resort to harassment and intimidation, while they appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari for intervention to end the harrowing experiences they are passing through.

The group maintained: “The Indigenous Niger Delta Contractors will continue to request the NDDC to pay for services rendered creditably as competent and performing contractors of the NDDC.

“The Niger Delta Contractors is calling on President Muhammadu Buhari and other relevant authorities and leaders of the Niger Delta region to call on the Interim Administrator of the NDDC, Mr Akwa Effiong to desist from using hoodlums, thugs and miscreants to intimidate and assault Contractors who are protesting non-payment of projects executed.

“It is very said that the NDDC under the watch of Mr Akwa Effiong and the Minister of.Niher Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio have turned to Akwa Ibom Nigeria Limited, thereby subjecting other parts of the region an Contractors to acute penury and poverty.”

They also decried the non-constitution of the board of NDDC for years which was a deliberate by the Hon. Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, so that he could manipulate activities of the agency, while they called on the President to consider the request of the Olu of Warri and other prominent Niger Delta stakeholders to urgently put the board in place.