Need for North-East dev commission

The enormous devastation of the North-East zone which has been the most backward, and the most marginalised in terms of provision of socio-economic facilities in Nigeria’s history is unquantifiable. What can comfort the North-Eastern people whose land has been ravaged by rampaging mindless ferocious Boko-Haram terrorists endlessly, slaughtering its people en masse and destroying their […]

The enormous devastation of the North-East zone which has been the most backward, and the most marginalised in terms of provision of socio-economic facilities in Nigeria’s history is unquantifiable. What can comfort the North-Eastern people whose land has been ravaged by rampaging mindless ferocious Boko-Haram terrorists endlessly, slaughtering its people en masse and destroying their means of livelihood. And as if that is not enough continue to steal thousands of its daughters and sons for sex slavery and forceful conscription, while the terrorists’ leader continues to taunt the parents on video. The victims’ horrifying ordeal at the terrorists’ den can only be imagined. Many lucky survivors made it by trekking through the dangerous forest for days in their desperate journey to escape horror while many didn’t. No other zone has been so raped and stripped of its honour and nothing could compensate the region for such pogrom.
Stories from survivors of Boko Haram massacre of their harrowing experiences before escape and their current situation seem like stories from Auschwitz. Several persons and groups have been expressing grave concern and making passionate calls about the untold suffering of the innocent internally displaced persons (IDPs) numbering about 2.1 million (by the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM’s) estimate but believed by many to be much higher). It is obvious that there is an urgent need for the immediate resettlement and rehabilitation of the widows, orphans and other IDPs who have lost their homes and means of livelihood including farms, markets etc. and are currently living under inhuman conditions in various camps scattered around the country. Adequate care has not reached many who have been suffering from starvation and diseases with vulnerable people like women and children being the worst victims.
Due to decades of neglect of the zone many people like the Koma in Adamawa and the Tulotulowa tribes in Borno State still lived almost in stone age level of development until they were “discovered” by the former Gongola State military governor the late Colonel Yohanna Madaki and former Borno State Military Governor AbdulMumini Aminu respectively in the 80s. The people of Antere on Mambila Plateau and other peoples living on the mountainous areas of Michika, Mubi and Maiha local governments are just a step ahead of Koma and Tulotulowa in their level of development. The poverty and high illiteracy caused by years of neglect in the North-East also explains why the Boko-Haram terrorists chose the area as their base where it is easier to brainwash and attract new recruits. President Goodluck Jonathan had to squeeze N2 billion to rebuild the six states of the zone in the 2014 budget; that is, after donating the same amount to Nollywood and allocating N100 billion for the Niger Delta Development Commission in the same budget.
The question now is, when are we going to have the North East Development Commission to at least rehabilitate and repatriate the surviving people and also for the reconstruction and recovery of the economy of the region which have been bombed to the lowest quality of life? Should the government wait until the teeming army of thousands of poverty stricken, unemployed and frustrated youth of the North-East establish organisations to confront the Nigerian government as the Niger Delta militants did, which could also lead to uncertainty?
It would be very imperative for the Government, that “belongs to everybody” as declared by the President to, as a matter of urgency, establish a North-East Development Commission to address this serious situation which has potential to compound or explode. Immediate priority should be given to the rebuilding of schools destroyed by the insurgents and agriculture which is the main preoccupation of the people in the region, while preparing a developmental agenda towards rebuilding the affected states for the sake of us all.
Engr. Saleh Yakubu, Border Communities Development Agency, Abuja