Group Threatens Uzodinma With N10bn Suit Over ISOPADEC

By Dipo Olowookere

If Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State does not make moves to remedy an alleged brazen violation of the law establishing the Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (ISOPADEC) within seven days, his administration will be slammed with a N10 billion suit at the court.

This threat was made by a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) known as Media Initiative against Injustice, Violence and Corruption (MIIVOC).

The group, in a statement issued on Sunday, said it will no longer sit back to watch the agency fade away and “called on well-meaning sons of the state to rise to the challenge of condemning the anomaly.”

According to the Executive Director of MIIVOC, Dr Walter Duru, the N10 billion will cover “exemplary damages from the Imo State government, among other demands.”

“Seven months into the present administration, no board has been inaugurated for the oil commission and everything about its operations is opaque.

“Seven months into the administration, statutory funds of the commission, being 40 per cent of the 13 per cent derivation funds, amounting to over N3 billion cannot be accounted for.

“About N600 million left in ISOPADEC coffers by the last managers of the commission has disappeared from the commission’s account,” he alleged in the statement made available to Business Post.

“In spite of the billions, the present administration has concluded plans to slash the salaries and allowances of staff of the commission, by placing them on the same salary structure with the state civil service.

“ISOPADEC Staff are also being owed about four months of salary arrears. The total wage bill of the commission is less than 10 per cent of the statutory 40 per cent from the 13 per cent derivation funds.

“Majority of the commission’s staff are indigenes of the two oil-producing Local Government Areas of the state; Ohaji/Egbema and Oguta LGAs,” Mr Duru further said in the statement.

He claimed that, “We have it on good authority that the Governor has directed the Head of Service of the state to take over the running of the oil commission in administration and process.

“The government has also enrolled staff of the commission in the purported automated salary system for state civil servants, slashing their salaries by about 80 per cent. These are obvious infractions to the law establishing the commission.”

According to him, “Having failed in his vexatious bid to smuggle in his native Oru East, being a part of his grand design to expropriate ISOPADEC FAAC allocation, he has now resigned himself to reducing ISOPADEC staff remuneration by 80 per cent; reduce its workforce by more than 50 per cent, while drawing up a shortlist of the potential new staff made up of his kinsmen from his native Omuma and surrounding Oru villages to replace the oil landlords who makeup ISOPADEC workforce.”

“The oil-producing communities have been returned to the old days of darkness. No electricity; no water; no good roads, with poverty building empires on the people, yet, billions meant to cushion the effects of oil exploration are diverted,” the group leader said.

Continuing, Mr Duru argued that “similar oil commissions in other parts of the Niger Delta region are not faced with any such fate, warning that the mismanagement of ISOPADEC funds is a recipe to crises in the oil-producing areas,” calling on Mr Uzodinma to do the right thing within the speculated period.