DAKUKU PETERSIDE VS AG. NDDC SEMENITARI SHOWDOWN: ONLY IN THE IMAGINATION OF MISCHIEF MAKERS – AIDE

Our attention has been drawn to a story that Ag. Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, and Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside, governorship candidate of All Progressives. Congress, APC, are in a “showdown”. The story, no doubt the product of a juvenile reportage, betrayed the sponsors. In their weird nomenclature, they interpreted a sincere, genuine, open and official assignment undertaken by the NDDC Chief Executive to the Rivers State Government House a dereliction of her loyalty to the All Progressives Congress. For them, Semenitari should not have accompanied the Senate Committee on Niger Delta when it paid a courtesy call on Governor Ezebuwon Nyesom Wike last Wednesday. Because she did, the sponsors have created an illusion which they called reality. In their attempt to widen the territory of their Utopian world, they further tied their fictitious narrative to Peterside. We suppose that for them, Semenitari and Peterside would always make a great story and huge news value. What a postulation!

To help offer immediate therapy to the peddlers’ diseased mind, we have undertaken this statement.

The Senate Committee, as part of its oversight function of NDDC and in implementing a referral from the whole chamber to do a holistic investigation of the Commission since its inception in 2000 till date, arrived Port Harcourt on the night of Monday, February 29. Procedure of protocol demanded the members visited the Governor of Rivers State. Semenitari, therefore as their Chief Host was expected to take them to the Governor. As the good Chief Host she was, Semenitari performed it excellently. And she has no apologies for doing her job well.

As per the claim that Semenitari’s presence at Government House compromised her cordial membership of APC, it is tantamount to saying that because Gov. Wike held his recent Thanksgiving Service in a church, he has become a cleric.

We state categorically that Semenitari remains a chieftain and loyal member of APC. By her current official portfolio, she is the mother of the 9 focal states of NDDC. She understands the delineation between partisan politics and public service.

There is no “showdown” between Semenitari and Peterside. It could exist only in the imagination of the sponsors of that cocktail of lies and the peddlers. The two remain inseparable leaders of APC and instruments for change in Niger Delta. Let those who concocted the fairy-tale seek better briefs from their sponsors. While we understand their fear that Semenitari is determined to establish financial propriety and contractual probity, two tenets alien to their sponsors, the MD will not be distracted by the current or similar attempts to smear her. She is totally focused and committed on turning the fortunes of the Niger Delta region through the agency of NDDC. She can’t do less than to achieve the mandate handed to her by President Muhammed Buhari and in a record time.

Bekee Anyalewechi
Special Assistant (Media) to the Ag. Managing Director