President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Mrs. Ibim Semenitari as the new Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC. She takes over from Bassey Dan-Abia, who has been sacked.
However, Semenitari is to function in acting capacity pending the appointment of a substantive managing director. It was also not clear what becomes of other directors on the board, whether have been sacked or not.
The new MD, an award-winning journalist and media manager, had served in the Communications Directorate of the Buhari Presidential Campaign Organisation during the 2015 presidential election.
Before then, Ibim, as she is fondly called, married to Mr. Henry Semenitari, a former Managing Director, Unity Bank PLC, and himself, a global award-winning banker, had served as Commissioner for Information and Communications in Rivers State under the administration of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
She is married with four children. She is a multiple award winning journalist including the CNN Journalist of the Year award.
The board of the NDDC was the first to be axed as soon as Buhari came to power with the chairman and representatives from nine different states that make up the commission removed.
Calls for the sack of the management and possible probe thereafter became strident, but the Federal Government merely received an audit report on the Commission, which may have revealed abandoned projects of many years standing.
Dan-Abia was only appointed managing director exactly two years ago (December 13, 2013), and has just revived the stakeholders forum that reviews the progress of the commission with the expectation that the governing council comprised of governors of affected states would soon be constituted.
As Commissioner of Information and Communications in Rivers State under the administration of the immediate past governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Ibim stood out as the pillar of the administration and became a bone in the throat of the opposition in the state.
Her appointment may send shock waves across the oil region as all eyes are fixed on the NDDC as many groups look up to the Commission for one favour or the other. Ibim may inherit a list of abandoned projects worth over N1.5 trillion.