Tommorow,7 April, 2017, Nsima Ekere , the Managing Director of  the Niger Delta Development Commission will be honoured with a Honorary Doctorate Degree in Management Technology by the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. Uyo based journalist, Nkeneke Efo transposes the honour against the Commission’s achievements, especially in the education sector.

Though an unwritten principle, the post of Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, just like that of the World Bank and other sustainable development agencies-however how political it is- has always been and may always be, held by experts in the fields associated with sustainable development – engineering, journalism, estate and quantity survey, medicine, law, architecture and their likes.

The incumbent, Mr. Nsima Ekere is an estate surveyor and valuer, registered by the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVRBN), a fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), a senior certified valuer by the International Real Estate Institute, USA and an associate member of the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation, UK.

Beyond his professional background, he has had valuable on-the-job experiences in other areas still linked to sustainable development like investment and portfolio management, construction, power sector administration, assets management, oil and gas and related services. He was also Deputy Governor-and Acting Governor for one month -of Akwa Ibom State  where he was responsible for boundary and emergency management, aside other duties of general governance, including an oversight over the state power sector and associated projects.

It was not in doubt, therefore, that he will bring all these experiences to bear when he assumed duty at the Commission in November 2016.

The Commission has always been in need of good managers to interprete the vision behind its establishment into reality. Try as hard as they can, the mission to do this has always been straddled with, mostly man-made and institutional bottle necks; rock solid societal hiccups and internally organized bumps.

In Ekere’s instance, these barriers presented themselves roughly in the beginning through a mountain of abandoned projects, a bloated financial liability and a non-practical budget.

Like a good manager that he is, and encouraged by a Board led by another experienced sustainable development specialist, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, Ekere and his team went to the drawing board, drawing strengths from the management precepts that says that to dare is to win.

The reality that the Commission had veered off its path, becoming more or less a contract awarding institution, stared Ekere in the face.

What to do? First, he recognized the need to take the Commission back to the right path. He told everybody that was within earshot, that the Commission must return to its core mandates which includes, but not limited to, the conception, planning and implementation of projects and programmes for sustainable development of the Niger Delta area in the field of transportation, including roads, jetties and waterways; health; employment; industrialization; agriculture and fisheries; housing and urban development; electricity and telecommunications.

Second, he developed a 4-R strategy to deal with the plagues of the Commission. The 4-R strategy was to enable Ekere’s team restore the commission’s mandate; restructure the balance sheet; reform the governance protocol and re-affirm its commitment to doing what is right and proper.

Finally, he set the boat to a new sail – navigating in the direction of change, in line with the same agenda set by President Muhammadu Buhari, who graciously appointed him.

Things started to change. A census of projects – abandoned and ongoing – was taken. Shockingly, over 80 per cent were discovered to be non-performing. Another census of the financial portfolio of the Commission was taken. It was also discovered that the Commission was liable to the tune of over a trillion Naira. Ekere then gave a tall order for contractors to get back to sites within a month or have their contracts revoked. Contractors literally fell over themselves to get back to sites, turning the whole region into a huge construction site resulting in hundreds of kilometers of roads being rehabilitated or constructed, water projects being installed and electricity projects reignited. Those who could not, had their contracts revoked, a very courageous step that could only be taken by an equally courageous manager like Ekere. As at the last count, over 600 non-performing contracts have been cancelled. Some have, however, been re-awarded to performing contractors. The Commission’s financial regime was re-jigged. The budgeting process was made practical and realistic- recently, Ekere set up a budget committee in the nine Niger Delta States to make the commission’s budget practical and in line with the needs of the people. Internal reforms were also carried out, making the Commission to have a fresh breathe of administrative fervor.

The education sector, naturally, benefitted from the change Ekere wrought. The Commission had always intervened in the sector especially in the area of infrastructural development – of lecture halls, hostels, classrooms. But Ekere tied all these interventions to a huge portfolio of investment in human capacity development and youth empowerment. As a politician who knows that to give youths fishes could cause stomach upset when there are no more fishes to eat, Ekere delved greatly into providing fishing tools for the youths to get fishes on a sustainable basis through intensive training and skills acquisition programmes.

Today, over 22,612 youths and women, including several by Ekere’s management, have been trained by the Commission in the areas of welding and fabrication, modern printing technology, solar power technology, food processing, enterprise development; catering and confectionaries; creative arts and entertainment; fashion design; wall screeding; POP installation; electrical wiring; interior decoration; plumbing; painting; and specialized carpentry. This year alone, over 100 youths have been signed on to undergo skills acquisition training at Inosson Motors Industry.

In the higher institutions in the region, most of the best hostels – 18 in all across the region – were built by the NDDC.

The NDDC has so far sponsored over 1,410 postgraduate students to different foreign universities in nine special skills areas including oil and gas law. Ekere, aside from intervening in the issue of non-payment of grants to awardees of the scholarship programme he met on assumption of duty, has also articulated and, is working on getting intellectually smart and alert indigenes of the region to be awarded undergraduate scholarships too.

An annual NDDC Moot Court Trial Competition, only recently started by Ekere’s management, is one of the Commission’s several interventions in horning the practical skills of the region’s undergraduates in their areas of specialization. The Library Complex assured the Federal University of Petroleum, Effurun, by the Commission, recently, signposts the Commission’s continued intervention in the area of necessary education facilities in the region.

To boost digital learning, Ekere’s management is planning to link the entire region with fibre optics that facilitates internet penetration and spread, to the greater benefit of students in the region.

Ekere, knowing that the foundation is germane for education to be productive in the future, recently flagged off the distribution of 72,000 chairs and desks for schools across the region. This is aside a whooping N2billion to be spent on schools’ renovations this year alone, a project that has already started bearing fruits as several schools across the region are currently being renovated.

Education will remain mere acquisition of knowledge if there is no innovative use of the knowledge for enterprise development, especially in a nation where white – and even blue – collar jobs are scarce to come by. In partnership with the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria, SMEDAN, and Builders Hub Impact Investment Programme, the Commission plans to establish Nigeria’s first and grandest enterprise and growth hub which will enable budding entrepreneurs and startups in the region to find meaningful expression.

The above list of interventions in the sector is but a few among several that are ongoing but suffice it to posit, as Ekere posited, at the opening of the Moot Court Trial Competition, that, in his days at the NDDC, the Commission will continue to “support efforts to advance education, since human capacity development strengthens livelihood, reduces poverty and curbs violence and crime.”

This support will include, for institutions like the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, which will, tomorrow, award Good Manager Ekere with a deserving Honorary Doctorate Degree in Management Technology.