The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Dr Samuel Ogbuku, has assured that the Commission will continue to play a strategic role in the development of education to ensure sustainable development in the Niger Delta region.
Ogbuku stated this in a keynote address during the 2024 Moot and Mock Trial Competition for law Faculties in the universities of the Niger Delta region, held at the Dr Nabo Graham Douglas Port Harcourt Campus of the Nigerian Law School.
He said: “The NDDC has intervened in various areas of our educational development, such as its scholarship schemes, building hostels, providing electricity and many other infrastructure projects in educational institutions across the region.
“Since our assumption of duty at the NDDC, we have made educational development and human capacity building our key policy thrust. The previous negative narrative of the NDDC is changing due to the conscious and sustained efforts to chart a new course of development for the region.
Ogbuku said further: “After our Rewind to Rebirth initiative, we resolved to Transit from Transaction to Transformation, which entails making a real difference in the lives of our people, as part of our contribution to the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“We have reactivated and strengthened our foreign post-graduate scholarship scheme, making it more merit-based and funding it adequately to prevent the challenges of the past. We also reactivated and strengthened our free medical outreach programme, which provides top notch healthcare to our people in the grassroots.”
Ogbuku noted that the region had enhanced development of jurisprudence in Nigeria and contributed immensely to the development of the legal profession.
“Indeed, the region boasts of producing some of the finest legal philosophers in Nigeria, from the Late Justice Udo Udoma, Late Justice Chukwudifo Oputa, Hon. Justice Ndoma-Egba, Justice Victor Ovie-Whiskey, Justice Niki Tobi, Justice Nabo Graham Douglas and Justice Walter Onoghen.
He announced that the NDDC would sponsor the oustanding faculty of law to undertake a one-month internship at the law firm of O.C.J Okocha in Port Harcourt.
Also speaking, the Chairman, NDDC Governing Board, Mr. Chiedu Ebie, said that the Commission would institutionalise the Moot and Mock competition to ensure the it endures.
He said that the Commission would continue to play its statutory role in developing and supporting other efforts to advance education, as well as support the development of legal education through practical trainings to improve capacity.
Ebie maintained that the strengthening of law and order was critical to the development of the region because it would ensure that all stakeholders contributing to regional development operated within the limits and expectations of the law.
The NDDC Chairman promised that the Commission would underwrite the one-year subscription to the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports for all the participating law faculties in the Moot and Mock competition.
Speaking earlier, the Special Guest of Honour, Chief O.C.J Okocha, commended NDDC for sponsoring the Moot and Mock Trial competition for law students, stating that it was an essential component of legal training.
Okocha, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, stated that human capacity building was a very important factor in the development of any region, adding that it was central to the development of critical thinking in all professions.
The legal luminary observed that the recent establishment of the South-East Development Commission and the North-West Development Commission raised some fundamental questions, given the political considerations that informed the move.
He remarked: “I hope the establishment of these commissions will not whittle down the importance attached to the NDDC as a vehicle for the rapid development of the Niger Delta region. These new commissions should not be used to undermine the effectiveness and usefulness of the NDDC.
“The Niger Delta is still a special region that needs special attention from the central government as the goose that lays the golden eggs for the country.”
Earlier in his welcome address, the NDDC Director of Legal Services, Dr Stephen Ighomuaye, said that the intellectual engagement of the youths of the region was a strategic mechanism to be consciously developed in finding creative solutions to the challenges facing the region.
He stated: “At the NDDC, we firmly believe that engaging the region’s youth intellectually is a vital strategy that should be actively nurtured and cultivated to address the unique challenges faced by the region, rather than turning to violence.”
