The former Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr. Yimebe Nunieh, has alleged that the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, engineered her removal from office for failing to do his bidding to implicate the Chairman of Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs, Peter Nwaoboshi, on fraudulent contracts awards and executions.
She further alleged that Akpabio made efforts to make her swear to fetish oath which she vehemently refused, hence, he removed her from office.
She made the allegation while responding to questions from journalists on the sidelines of the legislative open hearing on NDDC probe on Friday at the Senate wing of the National Assembly.
“The Minister did all manner of dirty things to forcefully remove me out of office, like sponsoring the vandalisation of Agip Trunk A pipeline in Bayelsa as a way of making the unsuspecting public to believe that the youths in the area are angry with NDDC under my leadership.
“He even made frantic attempts to force me to swear to fetish oath which I vehemently refused before he succeeded in getting me out of the place for sole purpose of having his way to run the place the way he likes under the present team of IMC,” she said.
She disclosed that out of the N81 billion spent by the Commission between October last year to May this year, only N8 billion was expended by Interim Management Committee (IMC) under her leadership from October 29, 2019 to February 18, 2020 .
On her part, a member of the current IMC, Evangelist Caroline Nagbo, punctured Nunieh’s claim by declaring that there was no time the Minister invited her or any other member of the IMC to take any oath of secrecy.
“As far as I am concerned, as a member of the current Interim Management Committee of NDDC, I took oath of allegiance and not oath of fetishism from any body,” she said.
