The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has disclosed that the list of contract beneficiaries released by Godswill Akpabio, minister of Niger Delta Affairs, is authentic and was not compiled by him.
Prominent names on the list compiled in 2018 are former Governors, Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia), James Ibori (Delta}, Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta) and Senator Peter Nwaoboshi.
While some of these politicians have denied benefitting from NDDC contracts, the commission however enjoined those whose names appeared in the list not to panic as it has been uncovered that some people used their names to get the jobs.
Charles Odili, NDDC’s director of corporate affairs also revealed that the list does not include a case of 250 contracts which were signed for and collected in one day by one person for members of the National Assembly.
Odili said “The Interim Management Committee of the commission stands by the list which came from files already in the possession of the forensic auditors. It is not an Akpabio list but the NDDC’s list; the list is part of the volume of 8,000 documents already handed over to the forensic auditors. Prominent indigenes of the Niger Delta whose names were on the list should not panic as the commission knew that people used the names of prominent persons in the region to secure contracts, and the ongoing forensic audit would unearth those behind the contracts. The intention of the list was to expose committee chairmen in the national assembly who used