By Ifeanyi Maduako
For clarity purpose, I have not read the contents of the recently passed South East Development Commission Act which has been signed into law by the president.
However, the euphoria and the excitement over the signing of the law may be misplaced. For me, I am not in the least excited over it.
Almost all the six geopolitical zones in the country have their own development commissions. It started with the North East Development Commission until all the other zones got theirs. The latest and obviously the last geopolitical zone to get it was the south east as usual.
Now, as I earlier said, what are the contents of all these development commissions for the six zones? Will all the six development commissions get equal allocations from the federal government or are their allocations varied?
Will all the six development commissions be exactly the same in components and compositions? Will they have the same structure?
The Southeast has the least number of states in Nigeria with just five states while others have six and the North West having seven states. The East has been agitating for at least one more state to be at par with other zones without success. The other zones have collectively frustrated the efforts of the Southeast to get an additional state.
Therefore, one is baffled how these other zones allowed the South East Development Commission Bill to sail through in both chambers of the National Assembly. Could it be that there is nothing beneficial to the people of the zone and that was why the legislators from the other zones and even the president allowed it to sail through?
What are all these development commissions for when we have federal, state and local governments? There is no piece of land that does not belong to a particular local government or state. So, if the governors and the local government chairmen are doing their works as expected, what is the need for these development commissions?
Currently, we have the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). The creation of additional development commissions means that in the South East and South South which make up the NDDC, the new South East Development Commission and its brother –South South Development Commission — will be added to these two zones for their development because of the gross incompetence of the elected officials.
The same thing applies to the South West and the North as a whole. It now means that in the South East, we will soon have the governors, the NDDC, the South East Development Commission and the local government areas manning the development of the zone. Will this gamut of agencies bring the desired development to the zone? Will the South East Development Commission receive the same allocation as other development commissions from the federal government or will the customary marginalization persist? Time will tell.
Maduako writes from Owerri, Imo State.