Members from almost, if not all, the six geo-political zones have submitted requests or bills to the National Assembly for the creation of a federal-funded regional body for the development of their geopolitical zones.

Already, the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has been in operation since 2000 when former President Olusegun Obasanjo yielded to agitators’ pressure and established it to address the development gaps in the nine states designated as the Niger Delta. Also, as a result of the Boko Haram terrorism which has wracked the zone since 2009, the North East Development Commission, NEDC, was established in 2017 to help resettle communities devastated by the jihadists.

Since then, attempts have been made to introduce bills for the establishment of the South-East Development Commission, SEDC, to address the core issues of rehabilitation of projects abandoned since the end of the civil war in 1970, particularly the massive erosions that were never evident before the war. The effort was spurned twice under Muhammadu Buhari, first in 2017 and again in 2018. The bill is still alive in the National Assembly.

In the same vein, several attempts have been made for the establishment of a Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission, HYPPADEC, by interest groups in the North-Central to cater for the areas around Kainji and Shiroro Dams.

In truth, every geopolitical zone has a peculiar developmental need that requires annual federal appropriations not only to fix these problems but also to ensure even development of the federation.

The security challenge that wracked the North-East has now spread to every geopolitical zone, particularly the North-Central, and people need to be resettled and secured in their communities. We have also begun to witness annual flooding along our major river banks, and people need to be taken to safer grounds and restored when the flood is over.

It is in line with these that we call for the establishment of Zonal Development Commissions for all the six geopolitical zones under the Office of the President. Critics of this idea may choose to point to the ugly experiences of the corruption-riddled NDDC and its legacy of over 11,000 abandoned projects and contractors absconding after collecting mobilisation fees.

The Federal Government and stakeholders see NDDC more as an avenue for the pacification of agitators than a development agency. That is why the corruption is condoned. The Zonal Development Commissions should run on the model already established by the NEDC, which is highly effective and accountable.

While the NDDC, which is primarily tied to oil producing states in the South-East and South-South should be reformed, the South-South Zone will still have its own Zonal Development Commission to carry out the Federal Government’s development programmes in the zone as in others.

Let us make the geopolitical zones more relevant to their residents.

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