South East Development Commission bill
A bill for the creation of a South East Development Commission (SEDC) recently met with conflicting reactions in the two chambers of the National Assembly. In the House of Representatives where it was first introduced, the bill failed to make it to the crucial Second Reading as members voted to throw it out after its […]
A bill for the creation of a South East Development Commission (SEDC) recently met with conflicting reactions in the two chambers of the National Assembly. In the House of Representatives where it was first introduced, the bill failed to make it to the crucial Second Reading as members voted to throw it out after its introduction on the floor by the sponsor Chukwuka Onyema. The House stopped the bill’s progress on several grounds including its unintended coincidence with the fresh wave of agitation by some Biafra irredentists clamouring for secession of the same South East geo-political zone from the Nigerian federation. Some members also called for further consultation by its sponsors.
In the Senate however the same bill sponsored by Senator Samuel Anyanwu found favour as it was passed without much debate for Second Reading following an appeal by the Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu for ‘fairness and justice.’ The bill’s success in the Senate attracted cheers from the South East Caucus which applauded Senators for the gesture. The Senate move opened the way for the bill to proceed to the next stage of public hearing where stake holders are expected to make inputs. This situation also conjures the prospects or otherwise of the resurrection of the bill in the House where it had failed the first time.
According to the proposed features of the bill, SEDC if established would last for ten years during which period it will address some of the critical issues of underdevelopment of the region in areas such as environmental degradation, infrastructure deficit and growing poverty. However while the outlined maladies are undeniable, the failure of the bill in the House was driven by two factors namely its timing and the prospects of it leading to an avalanche of requests by every other geopolitical zone in the country for own development commission. Such would hardly achieve the desired direction of economic development of the country.
However, given the fact that the Senate did not bother to debate the SEDC bill before passing it, the body failed to accord it the due robust consideration. Yet the fact that the bill is going further for Second Reading and the likely public hearings offers the opportunity for more public scrutiny of its merits and otherwise. The public hearings are expected to provide opportunity for adequate review of the factors that led to the call for this bill, especially in the perennial failure or otherwise of various state governments in the region to address the chronic problems as envisaged for resolution by SEDC.
The question is, what specific utility would SEDC serve? In the light of prevailing circumstances there is nothing the proposed SEDC will achieve that good governance from the extant tiers of government cannot achieve. The problems so enumerated can easily be managed under routine budgetary operations. The affected states can and should easily agitate for more funds for the zone instead of asking for another commission, which is only going to create a new bureaucracy that may possibly divert valuable resources away from development. Setting up another regional development commission is hardly encouraged by the performance the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC. Despite massive funding NDDC has hardly ameliorated the problems of the Niger Delta region.
The South East Caucus in the National Assembly should not lose sight of the fact that the ongoing wave of agitation for secession in the zone has assumed a worrisome dimension across the country, and thereby substantially eroded trust and confidence in the region’s leadership. In this atmosphere, making more concessions to the zone by other parts of the country is difficult. This is why as they work for the success of SEDC they should also see the need to assuage the concerns of the rest of the country by facilitating peaceful coexistence of all Nigerians, especially in South East Zone.