Community Development Committees of Niger Delta Oil and Gas Producing Areas, CDC, has warned the state governments in the region to desist from pressuring President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to approve the deduction of 3% development fund meant to improve the wellbeing of the host communities.

The committee urged President Tinubu to continue to keep faith with the people of the oil producing communities and not to hearken to the move by the Governors of the Niger Delta states, aimed at hijacking the funds.

CDC alleged that this move by the region’s Governors is geared towards hijacking the 3% Host communities development funds accruable as “specifically” provided for in the Petroleum Industrial Act, PIA, to uplift oil producing communities in terms of providing infrastructure and human capital development for the first time since the discovery of oil.

Chairman of the CDC, Joseph Ambakaderimo in a statement on Sunday in Port Harcourt said that the call from the State Governments to take over the management of this fund “is a recipe for renewed restiveness in the region if this matter is not managed with strategic intelligence bearing in mind where the country is coming from in terms of oil production”.

Ambakaderimo said that despite the humongous resources received as 13% derivation funds by the states Governors, “they have not been able to account for the deployment of these resources”, adding that, “nothing commensurate can be seen across many of the States’ rural host communities”.

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The CDC chairman said that the 13% derivation fund was originally meant to be paid directly to the communities, “yet, it was hijacked by the Governors for purposes of wetting their appetite”.

He said that the CDC in conjunction with the HostCom has put in motion a fool-proof mechanism to resolve all of the litigations that has arose from the constitution of management Teams of the funds for each management Team by ways of using alternative dispute resolution mechanism.

According to him, a compendium of 13% Derivation funds received by the States so far from the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) from 1999- 2025 was being compiled for publication.

“It is our believe that certain persons from government circles at the state level could be inciting some of these conflicts in order to justify the takeover of the resources as done with the 13% derivation funds.

“We will resist this evil plot and continue to appeal to those whose only appetite and lifestyle is to squander the resources while our people, whose only pursuit is peace and their livelihood have continued to fall victim of cruelty of these Governors, these people deserves to live to farm and live normal lives.

“We know for a fact that the HostCom Development Trust Funds committees have made appreciable progress by ways of concluding each Community Development Plan which entails needs assessment for each Community which are ready for consummation, therefore we wonder why this sudden likelihood of interference again from the Governor’s whom tried at the early days of the making of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to wrestle away the management of the 3% from the Communities grip”.

He enjoined that the PIA era should be a clear departure from the past were funds meant for Community Development are squandered while the culprits go Scot- free without consequences. “This time the CDC is working in collaboration with the EFCC and NUPRC to track disbursement of funds and payment for contracts to ensure the funds are judiciously used”, he said.