An Abuja based lawyer and Managing Partner at DA Drambi & Associates, Mr Daniel Amos, has faulted the appointment of Dr. Pius Odubu from Edo State as the Chairman of the NDDC.

According to Amos, the appointment ultra vires Section 4 of the NDDC Act and therefore inconsistent with the due process of law which action may have been orchestrated by certain persons with vested interest in the appointment of the purported new chairman and not the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as opposed to what the perpetrators want unsuspecting members of the public to believe.

He said that by Section of the NDDC Act which is a mandatory requirement of the Act, the Chairmanship of the Commission must rotate according to the alphabetical order provided by the Act which means Delta State mandatorily follows as the next State to present a candidate for office of the chairman of the commission. He further added that the import of words “shall rotate amongst the member States of the Commission in the following alphabetical order” in the Act leaves on one with any other option than to follow the principle of alphabetical rotation in the Act stricto sensu.

Section 4 of the NDDC Act states that;

The office of the Chairman shall rotate amongst the member States of the Commission in the following alphabetical order- (a) Abia State; (b) Akwa-Ibom State; (c) Bayelsa State; (d) Cross River State; (e) Delta State; (I) Edo State; (g) Imo State; (h) Ondo State; and (i) Rivers State.

Amos therefore called on the authorities concerned to have another look at the purported appointment in order to forestall inimical reactions capable of endangering the relative peace which the South-South has been enjoying of late. (LEADERSHIP)