South East needs development commission now –Amadi

The South East Summit on Security and Economy, (SESSE 2023) has ended with a call for the setting up of a South East Development Commission (SEDC) to operationalise ideas for development through actions for results, not jaded rhetoric.

This was the submission of Sam Amadi, former executive security of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and development scholar in a lead paper delivered at the summit.

Amadi’s paper entitled: “Roadmap to accelerated economic transformation of the South East,“ insisted there was a need for coordinated efforts in the desire to achieve the development of the South East zone intentionally, crystallised by structures ‘anointed’ with the power of collectivity and strength, with a mandate for action to move, work and deliver results. And the time is urgent now.”

He said the historic rapid transformation of the then eastern region under the premiership of the late Michael Okpara in the first republic, was a record other nations marvelled and copied, and therefore could be replicated without any pretence to magic or laments of limitations, but simply a leadership commitment to a mission and zeal for action.

“Put bluntly in a context, we cannot as a people lament for too long for what we have done before, demonstrated to world acclaim, and can still do again even better, with an increasingly digitised human capital in our thumbs, and amazing zestful youth assets to exploit. No, we must rise above the ‘prison’ of how the cookie crumbled to triumph over how the cookie is refreshed and enhanced.”

Re-emphasising the successes of the zone in the first republic that made the region the fastest growing economy in the world then, he declared  the ‘rocket attitude’ was the right mix of development processes, a coordinating body (the Eastern Nigeria Development Corporation) and a strong political will and character that made inclusion a norm and citizen mobilisation a charm.

Amadi was deliberate that a new coordinated effort to develop the five states of the South East will succeed if current dynamics are purposefully factored in the operations and functions of the proposed SEDC without debilitating personal interests and excessive political interruptions to work for common good.

“We have seen how Europe and Asia transformed their economies. We can borrow or reincarnate what we knew, to create a developmentalist state, that has political will to mobilise relevant consensus on a development agenda that drives and thrives coherently and consistently.”