NDDC’s Forensic Audit Report And Nyesom Wike’s Can Of Worms

The way things stand, it appears no Nigerian was clean enough to probe a fellow compatriot in good conscience. As may have been most theatrically demonstrated in the infamous “Minister off your mic” episode in 2021, corruption is so pervasive, virulent, intractable and yet condonable in the country that panels set up to probe a matter are always afraid they could end up being probed.

Historically, probes at the National Assembly have scarcely made a headway. Matters are always either pigeonholed permanently or completely killed, without apologies. The National Assembly now has the option of either removing this stigma of conspiracy or living with it in eternal shame and pretence.

On Thursday, July 4, 2025, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Mr Nyesom Wike, certainly shook tables in his typical sanctimony.

Speaking during a political programme, Politics Today on Channels Television, the former Rivers State governor and minister of education, state, questioned why the forensic report, which was ordered by former President Muhammadu Buhari and submitted in 2021, has not been acted upon to date.

“Mr President should help Nigerians. Please, release the forensic audit of the NDDC. I didn’t say the forensic audit was right, but I said, release the report”.

According to him, the calculated delay in publishing the findings is a deliberate move to shield politically exposed individuals. One can only wonder if Wike was surprised at what he knows has been the practice in a country he has been a big player, or better still, a situation he certainly knows why it is so and has to be so for Nigeria to deserve its name.

Nonetheless, although his target of attack was essentially his former boss and former minister of transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, it would appear Wike was speaking the minds of many Nigerians who have not had vantage privileges like him to speak out.

With the kind of sickening dramas Nigerians have watched over the years, the apparent endemic belief is that the easiest way to kill high high-profile probe involving high-profile Nigerians was to either subject such probes to the National Assembly or any other panel. At best, there would be a hiatus of silence courted by official pretensions. Besides the NDDC so-called probe, for instance, the National Assembly is currently said to be probing the NNPCL for fraud allegations of misappropriated trillions, which the Akpabio-led Senate already has said, although the monies that were “unaccounted for” were not really “missing”.

Without mincing words, Wike, the man of “permanent structures,” challenged the Federal Government to implement the report of the forensic audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). The implementation of the pigeonholed report, according to him, will expose names of big players in the infamous NDDC sleaze saga, allegedly including his former boss and governor of Rivers State, Mr Chibuike Amaechi and his wife. Wike’s demand for the Presidency was a reprisal or a reaction to Amaechi, who earlier also accused him of corruption and witch-hunting.

Speaking during an interview on X-Space Weekend Politics, Amaechi, on August 8, 2025, said if he wins the hearts of Nigerians to become the next President in 2027, he will end corruption in just three months.

“If I become President in 2027, I will change the Constitution from indigeneship to citizenship. If I do not end corruption in Nigeria within three months, I will tender my resignation”.

He swiftly shifted attention to Wike: “I challenge the FCT minister to take a walk along the streets of Port Harcourt, which will reveal who is healthier and who people actually loved”.

Wike’s retaliation, therefore, sounded like a rippling bombshell rejoinder of national implications.

He said, “Amaechi’s wife was not an industrialist. She has never been, and that is why I call on Mr President to release the forensic audit of NDDC.

Amaechi’s wife’s company, every month, got N4 billion to train the women of the Niger Delta. That is N48 billion in one year alone, and the forensic audit report is there. Who killed it? It was Malami, then the Attorney General.

“Former Attorney General, Malami, killed that document to protect those who were concerned. I’m not just saying what I am saying; let them release the document. That is how Ameachi’s wife became an industrialist, N4 billion every month to train Niger Delta women.”

He wasn’t mincing words. He promised to resign should the findings prove him otherwise.

“If what I am saying is not in the document, I will resign as minister of the FCT. I said I will resign. I don’t worship office”, he stated.

It is nothing new that our leaders fight dirty with justifications and sanctimony. But beyond the accusations and counter-accusations between Amaechi and Wike lies a fundamental need – the report of the 2021 forensic audit of the NDDC.

The Forensic Report History
Receiving governors of the states that make up the Niger Delta Development Commission, led by Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, in Abuja, late President Muhammadu Buhari said what was on the ground in the South-South region did not justify the huge resources that have been made available to the organisation. There has been a consensus on the President’s assertions. Worried by the situation, the President, therefore, ordered a forensic audit of the operations of the organisation from 2001 to 2019.

The audit consultants started work. The report was received by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, on behalf of President Buhari on Thursday, September 1, 2021.

Handing over the report, then Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, disclosed the parameters for the audit exercise. His words: “Via field verification, the forensic auditors established the exact status of all contracts for projects and programmes in all constituent states during the period under review, classified into completed, ongoing, abandoned, terminated, taken-over and non-existent.”

The minister added that the auditors also focused on funding gaps, irregularities, mismanagement and due process violations/conflicts of interest.

Based on that, back then, this writer, on this same stable, under this column, wrote an article entitled, “NDDC AUDIT REPORT AND AKPABIO’S AUDACITY”, capturing graphic details of the forensic audit report.

“There is little or nothing to surprise Nigerians in the Forensic Audit Report of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

Recall that the report was received back then, on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari, by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, on Thursday, September 2, 2021. According to the report, between 2001 and 2019, a total sum of Six Trillion Naira has been given and received by the NDDC. This represents N3, 375, 735,776,794.93 budgetary allocation and N2, 420,948,804,191.00 as income from statutory and non-statutory sources.

“Further breakdown shows that the Commission, an interventionist agency that it is, presently has 326 unreconciled bank accounts; 13,777 abandoned contracts, upon the six trillion it has received. Amongst other things, the contents of the report were mere confirmation of the age-long fears of colossal fraud in the NDDC from inception in 2001, getting progressively worse over the years.

According to the report, between 2001 and 2019, a total sum of Six Trillion Naira has been given and received by the NDDC. This represents N3, 375, 735,776,794.93 budgetary allocation and N2, 420,948,804,191.00 as Income from Statutory and Non-statutory sources.

“Although not all budgetary allocations are usually backed up with cash –and evidence of rollover onto successive years may be sketchy – the summary of the entire report is a big shame of how far entrenched corruption has tampered with the grand vision and objectives of the NDDC”.

It cannot be forgotten so soon the sad but comedy of absurdities that played out at the National Assembly during scrutiny of the seething malfeasance in the National Assembly, sequel to the report. First had been the dramatic fainting or swooning of the then MD/CEO of the NDDC, Prof. Kemebradikumo Pondei, under the heat of questions missiled at him in a fully air-conditioned auditorium of the National Assembly. That was on July 20, 2020. He was lifted out of the scene. His case remains closed to date.

But there was a Sen. Akpabio with something up his sleeve. He disclosed that the members of the National Assembly were the beneficiaries of most of the NDDC contracts. He said this when the committee invited him to shed light on the findings of a forensic audit report.

“I just told you that we have records to show that most of the contracts in the NDDC are given out to members of the National Assembly.”

The disclosure led to the deputy chairman of the panel, Mr Thomas Ereyitomi, shouting at Akpabio, “Honourable minister, off your mic”. That, discernibly, was to forestall Akpabio from making more revelations that may implicate them further.

The chairman of the panel, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, later rescued himself allegedly because he was a beneficiary, exactly like Akpabio said. Of course, at the time, Tunji Ojo was also accused by members of the Interim Management Committee of the NDDC of executing contracts from the commission despite being the chairman of a House Committee charged with the oversight mandate of the same commission. Akpabio specifically mentioned that Tunji Ojo had inserted 19 contracts worth 9 billion naira into the 2019 NDDC budget.

The typically smart minister was far from done. He also said, “It has always been known that the two chairmen of the committees on the NDDC in both chambers yearly exhibited unusual influence to the exclusion of committee members and even the management of the NDDC in appropriating funds to details embellished in the budget after the passage of line items at the plenaries.”

The audit report also captured the following: Condolences – N122.9bn; consultancy services –N83bn; Covid-19 344bn; community relations – N1.3bn; duty travel allowances N486 million; imprest –N790.4million; and Lassa Fever – N1.956bn. That was not all. Legal services gulped N900million; maintenance – N200million; overseas travel – N85.6million; project public community – N1.12bn; security – 744million; staffing expenses –N3.8bn; and stakeholders’ engagement (from February 18 to May 31, 2020) – 248million.

According to the acting managing director, who earlier disclosed that the 2019 budget of the NDDC was inflated with over 500 non-existing projects and N1.4 billion was spent on Covid, said the NDDC 2019 budget would terminate on May 31 without any project executed in the region during the fiscal year, but monies allocated to the projects had all been cleared.
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“We discovered that after NDDC forwarded its budget to the National Assembly Committees on NDDC, what was sent back to the commission was no longer recognisable. The 2019 budget was classically over-padded, with almost 500 new projects inserted into it when it was sent back to us.

“We found out the budget appropriation was done in such a way that meaningful projects were allocated very small sums of money. Unfortunately, the 2019 budget will expire on May 31 without any projects executed in the region. It has been two months since the end of its implementation period.”

It was perhaps one of Nigeria’s biggest corruption scandals that shook the country to its foundation.

Between January and May 2020, the Commission had three different managing directors, all of whom were sacked under controversial circumstances, directly or indirectly connected to heavy allegations. There was Dr Enyia Agwagaga, Dr Yemebi Joi Nunieh, and the dramatic Prof. Kemebradikumo Pondei.

Between Nunieh’s and Pondei’s table, in a period as short as two months, about 81.5million was purported to have developed wings in supposed favour of palliatives that were necessitated by the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Ever since that NDDC audit report was out, Nigerians have not known what exactly has been done with the damning allegations, if anything at all has been done. Curiously, those indicted in the report may have had the fortune of the notorious “Nigerian factor”. They have been recycled back to the present National Assembly or gratified with juicy appointments.

This situation re-emphasises Wike’s recent challenge. Were the Amaechis truly indicted, and who else? How and where did the FCT minister see the full content of the report? Who is keeping it? Where is it? What next? Or we should let the sleeping dog lie and move on, even if it means making more dogs to lie?

Incidentally, since Wike dropped the bomb, both the National Assembly and Presidency have been enjoying the luxury of conspiratorial silence. Maybe they are “not aware”.

Will the Presidency, or the National Assembly, do something to save its name and claims of war against corruption?