Diversion-Nigeria - The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Mr. Chigbo Ogbuoha has denied diverting the sum of $20 million from one of the commission's bank account. Speaking to newsmen at the weekend in Abuja, Mr. Ogbuoha said the decision of the agency to close its account with one of the nation's commercial banks was not informed by any form of fraud or shady deals but to prevent the commission from losing too much money in case of any misfortune that may befall the bank in question.

He said the affected bank is not doing very well and their capital base is not the best. "As I speak with you what is still in that account was $20 million. No money was taken; there was no royalty; it was not converted from naira to dollar or from dollar to naira it was in dollars and still remains in dollars."

He described as unfortunate a situation where by only Lebanese Filipinos are found working in Nigerian oil fields and they earn fat salaries. "We were able to train 25 internationally certified welders in Nigeria. Then the people we have trained have started retraining 700 others," he added.

The NDDC boss explained that, the commission was shifting its attention gradually from infrastructural to human capital development because according to him, "development itself cannot yield any result if the people are not doing it for themselves".

Recent media reports had indicated that the NDDC diverted $20 million to a private account.

Turaki A. Hassan

Daily Trust/14/02/2011