Rivers State governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike, has rescued the former acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Ms. Joi Nunieh, following a siege laid to her residence by a detachment of armed policemen.
Wike arrived Nunieh’s residence off Herbert Marculay Street, Amada-Flat at about 10:30 Thursday morning following reports that she had been prevented from leaving her house by a team of policemen allegedly on the order of the Inspection General of Police.
Nunieh was scheduled to appear before the House of Representatives ad hoc committee probing alleged malfeasance in the commission.
At Nunieh’s residence, a visibly angry Wike questioned the policemen who authorised the siege. Told that it was the IGP, he beckoned on Ms Nunieh to come out of her house.
The former NDDC boss joined the Rivers State governor in his car to escape the police siege even though she was scheduled to appear before a Senate panel investigating the activities of the NDDC in Abuja on Thursday.
The Senate and House of Representatives in early May 2020 resolved to probe how the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the NDDC spent N40 billion in three months.
The Senate set up an ad hoc committee chaired by Senator Olubunmi Adetunbi (APC, Ekiti North) to look into financial transactions carried out by the IMC on behalf of the commission within the period and present a report in four weeks.
The House Committee on NDDC said it had received several petitions from contractors, stakeholders and public interest groups regarding the alleged layoff of personnel and their replacement with unqualified and inexperienced persons.
Since the commencement of the probe Akpabio and Nunieh have made series of allegations against each other while the Senate ad hoc panel investigates the management of funds under their watch as interim NDDC chairman and minister in charge of the commission.
Akpabio had told the Senate panel that he knew nothing about the expenditure of the NDDC under Nunieh, because she refused to give him briefings.