A civil society organisation, the Media Initiative against Injustice, Violence and Corruption, has asked the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, to make the forensic audit report of the Niger Delta Development Commission public.

The Executive Director, MIIVOC, Dr Walter Duru, in a telephone interview on Wednesday, said Malami and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Mr Godswill Akpabio, were under obligation to make the document available to Nigerians.

He said the forensic report was not a secret document that should be kept away from the Niger Delta people.

Duru, whose organisation had invoked the Freedom of Information Act on Malami to release a copy of the report, alleged that thousands of the commission’s projects were abandoned with trillions of naira diverted into private pockets.

He said, “It is not about MIIVOC; it is about the commonwealth of the people that has been mismanaged. It is about trillions of naira that ought to have been used in implementing developmental projects in the Niger Delta region, but diverted.

“It is about thousands of projects that were awarded and not executed; and of course, the funds siphoned; it is about the level of hardship that the people have been subjected to because of the indescribable level of corruption in the system. Again, it is about the right of Nigerians to know.

“Don’t also forget that we are talking about the fact that not minding the trillions of naira that have been released to the NDDC for many years, the level of poverty in the area is worrisome. We have been waiting for this document; this is one of the reasons they gave for not appointing persons into the board of the commission.”

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Duru added, “This is one of the reasons that the commission has been run illegally for some time now by using caretaker committees; these things clearly violate the provisions of the NDDC Act. They violated the provisions of the Act just to ensure that there was a forensic audit.

“Again, Section 2, subsection 4 of the FoI Act makes it an obligation for the AGF and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to proactively make the report available for citizens to access even without waiting for citizens to come asking for it.

Earlier, Duru, in a letter addressed to Malami, said the request for the copy of the NDDC audit report became necessary based on the information that the minister had taken delivery of the document.

The letter, dated September 7, 2021, was made available to journalists on Wednesday.