No fewer than 10 civil society groups have dismissed allegations of multi-billion naira corruption scandal against the North-East Development Commission (NEDC) and its Managing Director, Alhaji Mohammed Goni Alkali.
The CSOs, in a joint press statement co-signed by Comrades Lawrence Audu and Bassey Ukpong for Good Governance and Advocacy Network (GGAN) on behalf of other groups, Tuesday, said the North-East Vanguard (NEV) and its cohorts aimed to distract Alkali by peddling falsehood.
According to the CSOs, the allegations of embezzlement leveled against the NEDC MD were based on assumption and political witch-hunting, without a single strand of confirmable evidence.
The statement noted that the North-East Vanguard decided to ignore some of the achievements of the NEDC, including hundreds of projects under education, health, agriculture, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and other social infrastructure to embark on paymasters’ job.
The groups also recalled how NEDC partnered Borno state government and others in the region under the Rapid Response Intervention (RRI) programme to address the challenges of damaged infrastructure and other facilities.
The statement further rubbished alleged nepotism in employment levelled against the MD, noting the NEDC Governing Board has all the six geo-political zones represented.
The CSOs, however, advised NEV and their cohorts to do more research on NEDC’s activities under Alkali and if possible visit the North-East to see for themselves.
“NEV and their cohorts should do more research and investigations on NEDC activities under Alkali. If the pressure group feels the House of Reps abandoned its probe of NEDC, there must be a reason. It’s either they have found nothing worthwhile in the allegations or they are still investigating.
“But as usual, vilifiers like NEV would not like to speak about the glowing commendation of the Senate Committee on Special Duties, led by its chairman, Sen. Yusuf Abubakar on the Alkali-led NEDC management for its ‘outstanding performance’ in humanitarian interventions in the region with these profound words,” the statement said in part.
