From Blessing Ibunge, Port Harcourt
Clearpoint Communications Limited, yesterday, organized a-two-day training programme for communications specialists drawn from the oil
producing regions to support the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC’s Forensic Audit exercise.
Addressing the trainees in Port Harcourt, the Chief Executive Officer, Clearpoint Communications Limited, Mr. Moffat Ekoriko said the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to clean up the NDDC’s by blocking all its financial loopholes through forensic audit excercise has received commendations from citizens thus the need to compliment his efforts.
Mr Ekoriko said participants selected across the regions would be expected to give communication support to the forensic audit who will be visiting the nine states covered by the NDDC mandate.
According to him those saddled with the responsibility of giving support to the communication component of the audit teams, needed to be well equipped with the requisites knowledge so that they can be more effective with a view to meet the expectation President Buhari in his fight against corruption .
He said the essence Mr President commitment in correcting the ills in the commission could be misunderstood for lack of adequate information
and stressed the need for the Communications Specialists to educate and give the right information to the public.
“Information can be misunderstood and when this is done, it will create a wrong impression in the minds of the public and what you intend to do or achieve at that time might be defeated. So we are here to train you on how to help give the public the right information” he said.
The CEO of ClearPiont Communications, further tasked the trainees to see the assignment as a call to develop the Niger Delta regions, stressing that should the commission succeeds, the regions will equally succeed.
He said, “As for the trainees, I want to challenge you not to see your assignment, we have taken time to make sure that we pick people from
the Niger Delta state and we require greater commitment from you.
“And I am speaking as a Niger Deltan today, that you have a job to do See yourself as a people who have been sent out to go and change the story of your people for when NDDC works, the Niger Delta will work, if NDDC succeeds, the development narratives of the Niger Delta will be different.
Director, Corporate Affairs, NDDC, Mr. Charles Obi Odili, in his remark said that the call for a forensic audit into the commission’s affairs might not have augured well with some few individuals in the
system but explained that the exercise will help place the commission sound footing.
Mr Odili said the udit of the commission is sacrosanct because the time has come for the NDDC, which was established in 2000 to offer a
lasting solution to the socio-economic difficulties of the region and give it a quantum leap into the future like every other crude oil producing region across the World.
In a presentation titled, “The NDDC, Facts, Figures and Falsehood”, Mr Chijioke Amun-Nnadi, Deputy Director, Corporate Affairs, at the NDDC, highlighted the fact that the crude oil rich Niger Delta that is the third largest Delta in the World and populated by 31.2 million people is the most underdeveloped region in Nigeria.
Mr. Amu-Nnadi fexplained that while the Niger Delta region’s natural resources have supported Nigeria’s rise to being the 6th largest oil
producer in the world, yet 70 per cent of the people in the region live below the poverty line, just as “all indices of development such
as education, health, sanitation, job creation, water and other physical infrastructures, were far below acceptable standards.
Mr Pius Ughakpoteni, a Deputy Director in the Commission and also Head Media Relation in a presentation titled “Managing Social Media
for NDDC and its Forensic Audit Team: A Pre-academic Perspective” , said the trainees must deploy vision, element of science, and also an
act of creativity to be successful in their quest of joining the presidency in getting the commission back to its right track again.
He challenged them also to make good use of all the necessary channels of communications available with the views of knowing what they
(public) think about the commission noting that such could also help in a large way of directing the affairs of the commission.
Clearpoint Communications Limited is an integrated media and communications consultancy firm which was set up in 2003 to meet the communication needs of African governments at regional and national levels to reach out to International audience.
