NDDC Boss Makes Case for Development as Peace Strategy
The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Dr Samuel Ogbuku, has declared that sustainable peace in the Niger Delta cannot be achieved by security operations alone, but through deliberate, inclusive and transformational development.
Ogbuku made the declaration while delivering the Distinguished Personality Lecture at the National Institute for Security Studies, NISS, in Abuja, on the theme: “Peace Building Through Development: The Strategic Role of the NDDC in Stabilising the Niger Delta Region.”
Addressing participants at the Institute, including senior security officers, policy makers and strategic leaders, the NDDC boss said the dominant approach to peace in the Niger Delta had, for decades, focused on security enforcement measures.
He noted, however: “Experience has taught us that you cannot sustainably secure what you have persistently failed to develop.”
According to Ogbuku, under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, the NDDC has shifted from transactional development to transformational development, moving from merely delivering projects to building trust, resilience, and sustainable opportunities.
He lauded President Tinubu for giving the NDDC leadership the mandate to complete all ongoing projects and for getting the Commission to sign a performance bond, which guides its project delivery.
The NDDC boss announced that the 1.2-kilometre Kaa-Ataba Bridge in Rivers State, linking Khana and Andoni Local Government Areas, had been completed and would be named President Tinubu Bridge.
Ogbuku noted that NDDC launched a ‘Rewind to Rebirth’ initiative to recalibrate engagement with the Niger Delta stakeholders and the Commission’s overall intervention implementation plan.
On NDDC’s peace-building approach, Ogbuku noted that peace thrives where people feel heard, respected and included. He said the Commission, at its 2026 Partners for Sustainable Development Conference in Port Harcourt, presented a Stakeholder Document and introduced Community Monitoring Committees to make communities participants and owners, not spectators, in development.
“When a community monitors a project, it has a greater stake in protecting that project. When governments listen to communities, they are more likely to trust them. Transparency underpins trust, and trust underpins peace,” he said.
He also stressed the need to harmonise development interventions to reduce conflict drivers, noting that duplication and perceived inequality fuel tension. He said: “Through collaboration with the Ministry of Regional Development under Engr. Abubakar Momoh, the NDDC is working to harmonise regional development master plans under a National Policy on Regional Development.”
Ogbuku explained that the Partners for Sustainable Development (PSD) Forum, established under the NDDC Act as a clearinghouse, remains a platform for synchronising development activities among agencies, state governments, local governments and development partners. The NDDC boss said inter-agency collaboration has become inevitable, as the region has different layers of development interventions.
“Without collaboration, the result is confusion. With collaboration, it is leverage,” he said. He cited the 27-kilometre Ogbia-Nembe Road in Bayelsa State, which connects 14 communities with 99 culverts and 14 bridges, built through partnership with Shell Petroleum Development Company, and the Memorandum of Understanding with NLNG for the Bonny Ring Road and the 3.65-kilometre Okrika-Borikiri Road with three bridges in Rivers State.
On youth restiveness, he said the most important peace-building intervention is to make the legitimate economy more attractive than the illicit economy. “You cannot simply tell a young person to drop the arms without providing an alternative pathway to dignity and livelihood. That alternative may be a farm, a skill, a business, access to finance or a job,” he said.
Ogbuku said the Commission has strengthened its corporate governance framework with measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and digitised its internal processes through e-procurement, digitisation of contract award letters and the Electronic Memo (e-Memo) platform. “Digitalisation is not merely about technology. It is about institutional transformation,” he said.
He concluded that development should not merely respond to crisis, but prevent it, stressing that security and development mutually reinforce each other. We cannot sustainably secure the Niger Delta without developing it,” Ogbuku said.
He called for a shared responsibility for peace, urging traditional rulers to serve as peace ambassadors, youth and women’s organisations to partner in monitoring projects, state and local governments to become co-implementers, and security institutions to see development agencies as partners in preventive security.
The Commandant, National Institute for Security Studies, Mr Joseph Odama, said the Distinguished Personality Lecture brought together members of the intelligence and security community, opinion leaders and analysts to chart a new path for national development.
He described the NDDC Managing Director as a pragmatic leader who speaks from experience and knowledge, urging the participants to emulate good role models.
The NISS Commandant presented Ogbuku with a “Distinguished Personality of the Year Award” in recognition of his contributions to peace in the Niger Delta region.
