President Buhari Names Lauretta Onochie NDDC Board Chairman

Buhari has appointed his Special Adviser on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie as the substantive Chairman of the Board of NDDC.

President Muhammadu Buhari today, asked the Senate to confirm the appointment of his Special Adviser on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie as the substantive Chairman of the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC).

Buhari’s letter which was read at plenary by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, also named 15 others as members of the Board.

Recall that President Buhari had nominated Onochie alongside three others as commissioners of the electoral body INEC on October 13th, 2020.  Lauretta was nominated as a National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) representing Delta State.

The Nigerian Senate rejected her appointment after the Senate committee discovered that Onochie was “greatly partisan based on her conviction that All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Buhari are the best for Nigeria”.

Apart from the fact that Opposition senators (PDP) were unanimous in their rejection of Onochie, some APC senators also opposed to her emergence. 

Three years ago, Nigeria’s former vice-president and current presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, sued Ms. Lauretta for N2.5billion over an alleged libel and defamation of character over an alleged libelous tweet she posted on her Twitter handle on May 7, 2019.

In the tweet, Onochie wrote that Atiku was on the watch list of security operatives in the United Arab Emirates and had traveled to shop for terrorists in the Middle East.

She compounded the issue by saying no apology for ”depressed” Atiku whose aides are cooking up disgrace for him and Atiku is a coward, he wouldn’t dare threaten nor bully Lai Mohammed.

This was not the first nor the last time Onochie was in the news for the wrong reasons. In 2018, she was caught twice making false accusations against Atiku. She also made a bold statement that caused an uproar in the country. She said Nigerians are looking for trouble by criminalising Fulani herdsmen. As if that wasn’t enough, she announced that Nigerians flaunting lifestyles they can’t afford will be investigated.

She clashed with Musician Wizkid, who blasted her online after she called him a ”dumb kid‘ and also had issues with Dele Momodu for describing President Buhari as a failure. 

A few months ago, Ohanaeze condemned Lauretta Onochie’s attack on Igbo leaders over Nnamdi Kanu.

This is breaking news. More details will be added as soon as it’s available.