“They (police officers) came here to my home since 4 a.m.,
they have surrounded everywhere,” Ms Nunieh told PREMIUM TIMES, Thursday
morning.
“I am inside my house, I can’t leave for Abuja where I am
scheduled to appear today before the House of Representatives Investigative
hearing on NDDC,” she added.
Ms Nunieh said she has called the police commissioner in
Port Harcourt over the development, but the commissioner said her office and
her officials were not involved in it.
The embattled former interim MD and the Minister of Niger
Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, recently engaged each other in a war of words
over corruption allegations in NDDC.
She said she suspects that Mr Akpabio may have a hand in the
police blockade of her private residence.
Mr Akpabio and his aide, Anietie Ekong, declined comments
after calls and text messages were placed to their known lines.
Rivers State police spokesperson, Omoni Nnamdi, said he is
“yet to get that report, so let me not speculate.” When informed that the “siege”
had been on since about 4 a.m., he said he will get back to this medium.
Background
Ms Nunieh and Mr Akpabio have been locked in a series of
heated exchanges, the most recent being an accusation that Mr Akpabio tried to
“come up” on her after failing to bribe her and convince her to take an oath of
secrecy in Abuja.
She claimed that she slapped the minister for sexually
assaulting her, a claim for which the minister turned down a request for clarification.
“We should not focus on sensationalism and pull-him down
syndrome. For me, that (the development of the Niger Delta region) is what
should engage our attention.
“As a Minister of the Federal Republic, I cannot discuss
about an individual. I can discuss issues that will bring development and move
the region forward; things that will promote the ideals of the Federal
Government,” he said.
At the centre of the controversies is the Niger Delta
commission, whose mandate to develop the oil-rich region has been sluggish for
two decades of existence, largely due to corruption among officials in the
agency.
Ms Nunieh acted as the commission’s head after the removal of Akwagaga Enyia in October 2019, but she was sacked four months later as the crisis rocking the commission over abuse of funds kept mounting.
PREMIUM TIMES exclusively learnt that Mr Akpabio played a
major role in the removal of Ms Nunieh.
President Muhammadu Buhari, in February, named Kemebradikumo
Pondei, a professor of medicine, as her replacement. He also ordered a forensic
audit on the commission’s finances.
Both Houses of the National Assembly have, in the past months, uncovered series of financial infractions in the commission’s activities ranging from non-performing contractors to unaccounted funds in the tune of billions of naira.
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