In a short video on X last week, I saw an elated Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Benjamin Kalu. He was dancing heartily as he severally shouted the Igbo conviviality salute ‘Igbo Nmamanu!!!’ He clutched a copy of the South-East Development Commission(SEDC) bill that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had just assented to. The joy in the heart and face of deputy speaker Kalu was unmistakable; here was a man who appeared to have struck gold in the name of a cure-all solution to the challenges bedevilling his geopolitical zone.
And we may not begrudge Kalu and his celebration. The SEDC bill has been a sort of abiku in the chambers of the National Assembly in recent years as attempts to bring it to life have been resisted. So, for the bill to eventually transmute into one of the laws of the Nigerian federation during his tenure as the number two man in the green changer calls for celebration.
In a statement he issued thereafter, Kalu said that he was expressing “an extravagant gratitude” to President Tinubu, for signing the South-East Development Commission (SEDC) Bill into law. There is the belief that the coming into force of the law and the commission would end the 54-year-old cry of marginalisation in the South East and actualise the three Rs-Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation, declared by Head of State Yakubu Gowon at the end of the Nigerian civil war. When it becomes operational, the commission is expected to tackle infrastructure and ecological problems in the South-East as well as tackle environmental challenges in the five states of the zone. Kalu was not alone in the effusive outpouring of praise as a result of Tinubu’s assent to the bill. Groups, individuals and the Ohanaeze Ndigbo also praised the president for granting the assent.
In a similar vein, the deputy president of the Senate, Senator Jubril Barau, has also commended President Bola Tinubu for assenting to the North-West Development Commission bill. “The President has signed the North West Development Commission Bill into law. It has come to light that the commission is going to assist in the development of the North-West.
“You are all aware of the development of that zone that is in the forefront of food production in this country but it has been ravaged recently by activities of Boko Haram that have destroyed health, education and infrastructures. With this Commission, we can rebuild this region.
“Mr. President has shown that he loves the people of this region and whatever is done for North West, he has done for the entire country because we are all interconnected. He has shown that he has the foresight and goodwill to develop this country…what he has done is a demonstration that he is a leader to be trusted; we have to be patient with him. We know that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Let us continue to pray for him.”
Just like it has happened to the people of North West and the South-East, similar “cheery news” is being expected by the people of the North-Central and South-West shortly. An attempt to introduce the South-South Development Commission was, however, shut down recently in the Senate. And that would indeed have been an overkill. The South-South already has the Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC) the Presidential Amnesty Programme and the Ministry of Niger Delta, all mandated to propel development in the South-South region.
Despite the ongoing merriment in the South-East and the North-West on account of the development commission bills already signed into law, concerns won’t cease about the relationship between that development and the government’s avowed bid to implement the Oronsaye report. The report, which was received by the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 recommended the merger of several Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs), in an effort aimed at addressing the cost of governance.
The Tinubu government said recently that it was committed to implementing the report and had set up a committee to actualise that. But in the wake of that commitment, the government had established the Ministry of Livestock Development, while the president, last week, assented to bills setting up development commissions for two zones. Previously, the North-East Development Commission had been established under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
But rather than engaging in expressive ecstasy and the orgy of dance drama we have seen from deputy speaker Kalu and deputy senate president, Jubril Barau, the stakeholders should be rolling their sleeves to ensure the development commissions don’t fail like the previous. In fact, the news of the passage of the commissions should amount to a sort of call to arms and what the Yoruba call Ise ya (time to act).
Before we get there, a key concern is the emerging reality that the Federal Government has kept populating the list of MDAs which Oronsaye report it promised to implement, is seeking to streamline. But our concern should not just end there. There is also the dread that the development commissions may not achieve the purpose of their establishment.
If you follow the trajectory of the NDDC and the recently established NEDC, your conclusion would not be far from mine. The NEDC was a child of circumstance which was saddled with the task of revitalising the North-East region after most of the good things therein had been butchered by the Boko Haram insurgents. But aside from the tokenistic measures of sharing palliatives occasionally, we are yet to see the commission embark on any landmark developmental initiative.
The case of its elder brother, the NDDC is more pathetic. It is either the Federal Government is withholding the funds meant for its operation or the little funds released end up in a weave of controversy. In some instances, its officials were busy treating the nation to some farcical off-the-mic scenes when probes were afoot.
Recent reports have indicated that the NDDC, which was established by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo in the year 2000, is yet to complete any “fantastic project” in any of the nine states that it is to serve. The commission was some time ago saddled with the task of delivering the East-West road, a major connecting artery in its operating area, the project has been a victim of lip-service execution since. A report by the government indicated that by 2021, more than 13,000 projects and programmes by the commission had been either abandoned or remained uncompleted
Indeed, what do we see of NDDC officials? They constitute themselves to parallel governors, battling their home states for space in a vacuum. It is easy to conclude that since Timi Alaibe left that commission, years ago, it has only been engaged in an endless struggle to find direction. It is now more of a ‘job for the boys’ thing and I fear these emerging development commissions will grow the same seed.