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| NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt. Photograph: Niger Delta Development Commission. |
The Niger Delta Development Commission has opened a three-day masterclass in Lagos to examine how accountability, resource management and administrative decisions affect the development programmes it delivers across the region.
The commission’s 2026 training programme places its internal operations under scrutiny, with participants calling for closer attention to the benefits communities receive from its interventions.
According to Arise News’ report from the programme, the sessions seek to improve organisational capacity, administrative efficiency and responsibility for the commission’s work.
Participants argued that spending figures and project totals could not, on their own, establish whether the NDDC was meeting the expectations of the people it serves. They emphasised the need to examine how decisions are made, resources are used and projects respond to community priorities.
THISDAY reported that the programme began in Ikeja on Thursday, 12 November, under the theme, “Beyond Service Delivery: Institutional Accountability, Stakeholder Satisfaction and Sustainable Development Outcomes in NDDC.”
Ifedayo Abegunde, the commission’s Executive Director, Corporate Services, delivered his opening message through Nzelaw Anele. He urged staff to uphold integrity, administrative efficiency and value for money in their work.
A central argument during the discussions was that officials must take responsibility for the processes they oversee. Speakers linked the commission’s ability to fulfil its mandate to whether its departments and personnel accepted ownership of their decisions and responsibilities.
Professor Sylvester Odion-Akhaine of Lagos State University, identified among the resource persons, emphasised institutional responsibility and urged management to pursue its objectives without being diverted by undue political interference.
The discussions also addressed how staff understand accountability. One participant in the ARISE News report described it as stewardship, challenging the tendency to associate scrutiny principally with punishment.
“The moment you are given any responsibility, you are expected to be accountable.”
The speaker placed transparency alongside that responsibility, arguing that development programmes require openness in the way institutions conduct their affairs.
“There is no way we can have meaningful developments if we are not transparent.”
The emphasis extended to ethical leadership and performance monitoring. Participants said stronger internal systems could help the commission explain its work more clearly, improve public confidence and establish whether its interventions were producing the intended benefits.
Those concerns apply across a development mandate that includes infrastructure, education, healthcare, environmental management, employment and community development. The programme examined the administrative responsibilities that support work in those sectors, alongside the delivery of individual projects.
Agriculture also featured in the discussions. An interviewee in the ARISE News report described it as one of the commission’s areas of intervention and said projects were continuing.
The participant said those interventions were intended to respond to the needs of Niger Delta residents. The comments formed part of the wider discussion about connecting the commission’s activities with the communities it is established to serve.
Organisers have also provided for a follow-up Service Excellence Implementation Bootcamp for selected staff. The practical component is intended to convert recommendations into departmental procedures, quality-assurance tools, performance indicators and improvements in services.
That component gives the training a focus on application within the commission’s departments. Staff will be expected to relate the discussions on accountability and service delivery to the procedures through which the agency carries out its responsibilities.
Staff wellbeing forms another part of the programme. Abegunde linked employees’ health and working conditions to concentration, decision-making and professional effectiveness, identifying workplace wellness as an element of the commission’s capacity development.
Across the sessions, the stated objective is to connect improvements in the NDDC’s internal operations with development results that communities can identify and assess.
The programme places responsibility on the institution to account for both how it works and what its interventions achieve, with lasting benefits for Niger Delta residents presented as the measure of its development effort.