How Buhari Removed Former NDDC MD, Joy Nunieh


Fresh facts have emerged as to why the former acting Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr. Joy Nunieh was sacked by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Nunieh, it would be recalled, was unceremoniously removed as the Commission’s Acting MD on Wednesday 19th February, 2020.

She is said to have been sacked for non-participation in the one-year compulsory national service scheme.

This revelation, however, is coming against the backdrop that the embattled former NDDC’s acting MD may have been sacked due to a frosty relationship between her and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio.

Nunieh’s sack was actually called for by the Presidency, through a letter sent to Akpabio’s ministry by the Chief of Staff to the President, Mr. Abba Kyari, apparently due to an earlier petition against the person of Dr. Joy Nunieh.
In a letter with reference number SH/COS/103/A/251, dated 4th February 2020 and tittled ‘A CASE OF NON POSSESSION OF VALID NYSC CERTIFICATE BY JOY NUNIEH, ACTING MD OF NDDC: AN URGENT CALL FOR REDRESS’, Kyari  requested for Akpabio’s review and appropriate action on a matter from the Anti-Corruption and Accountability Coalition Against Corruption.


The above request from Abba Kyari however may have prompted Akpabio to seek for clarifications from the NYSC.

Responding to the request via a letter with reference number NYSC/DHQ/CCD/GEN/01/VL.II/300 and signed on behalf of the Director General of NYSC by the Direcor, Corps Certification, Mrs. Okonofua K.N, the NYSC said that from available record, Nunieh Joy Yimegbe, who graduated from the Nigerian Law School, Lagos in the 1989/90 session, was mobilised/deployed to Kwara State for the one-year national service in the 1990/91 service year.

But the commission said it has no record of the participation of the sacked acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Joy Nunieh in the scheme.

“However, no record exists either in NYSC Kwara State or NYSC Directorate Headquarters to evidence her participation in the scheme,” NYSC stated in the letter.

NYSC’s clarification followed a request by the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs – NDDC’s supervisory ministry -demanding the status of Nunieh in the scheme.

This new twist into the whole saga has not but put to rest the insinuation in some quarters that Apkabio, who is said to be instrumental to the appointment of the sacked acting MD, may have staged her removal as result of the purported face-off between both of them.

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