The NSA made the disclosure when Milland Dikio, interim coordinator of the programme paid President Muhammadu Buhari a visit in Abuja on Friday, October 9.  

He said “The predatory instincts of certain individuals came into the fore and the programme was turned upside down and as a result of this, as the administrator has just said, there was a lot of corruption, waste, mismanagement within this period. N712 billion was wasted, basically unaccounted for, and this is due to so many issues — corruption being at the fore.  Now, we realised that if the focus of the people who are supposed to drive this programme is to capsize the programme by allowing their own personal interest to come in, then we are all going to be in trouble because if the Niger Delta is in trouble, consequently, it will extend to the rest of the federation. Therefore, I had to take this step to advise Mr President that this waste cannot go on. This programme is not supposed to be an open-ended programme; there is no place on the surface of this earth where programmes that are supposed to be palliatory will continue forever, at the end of the day becoming a big problem and entanglement for the government. Therefore, we decided to take immediate action by bringing in someone who can take a deep look at these programmes, which resulted in it being flawed — a person with vast experience and we all know the experience of Colonel Dikio in this type of issue.”