By
UGO ONUOHA
THE first take is to dismiss the six regional development commissions birthed by Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress [APC] political party, as at best, a waste and a drain pipe, and at worst as partisan political set ups and money laundering channels ahead of the 2027 elections. They might as well be all the things at the same time. There might actually be seven development agencies since there’s no publicly available evidence that the Niger Delta Development Commission [NDDC] established about 20 years ago by the administration of Gen.[rtd] Olusegun Obasanjo has been wound up. In other words, the NDDC could be operating alongside the South South Development Commission [SSDC]. Since there’s no budgetary provision yet for the SSDC, it would be safe to assume that the SSDC and the NDDC are one and the same. So NNDC may hence forward operate under the name of SSDC to align with similar commissions in the other five geopolitical zones.
Early last month [that’s May], the president was reported to have forwarded a letter to his senate requesting it to screen and confirm nominees for the boards and managements of the South West Development Commission [SWDC], North Central Development Commission [NCDC], and the SSDC. The request was to complete the establishment processes for all the commissions across the country. In broad terms the regional commissions are being established to accelerate infrastructural development, stimulate economic activities, and improve social welfare in their respective geopolitical zones. Each commission is expected to operate with legislative oversight from the national assembly [NASS]. This NASS is not good at anything it has done thus far in the past two years of its existence. What this means is that the regional commissions have failed in the area of oversight. Instead of making operatives of the commissions to deliver on their mandates, the NASS members will focus on how much can be extorted from the agencies. The history of the extortionist proclivity of our senators and representatives is in the public domain. And legendary. There will be no need for receipts. The sitting senate president was a key dramatis personae in a televised public hearing on the sordid activities of the NDDC. He was then the supervising minister of the agency.
NDDC is the precursor to the current plethora of development commissions. Before NDDC there was a similar interventionist agency which name we cannot readily recall. It was set up to play a similar role like NDDC’s. Obasanjo created the NDDC on June 5, 2000, 25 years ago this month. It was established to develop the oil-rich Niger Delta region comprising about nine states. Its mandate includes addressing environmental issues in the region, tackling poverty and lack of social services. It has as its core mandates infrastructure development, human capital formation, economic empowerment, and battling ecological and environmental degradation caused in part by crude oil exploitation. The jury is out on whether the commission has substantially delivered on its mandate. It should be admitted, however, that the NDDC has positively impacted some of the communities it was created to serve. But the truth remains that the NDDC is better known for its notoriety- corruption, fraud, abandoned projects, contract inflation, abuse of power by elements in its leadership cadre, sexual harassment, accusations and counter accusations between its leadership and members of the NASS at public hearings, among others. In 25 years there’s no evidence that the NDDC has helped to significantly transform any of the states under its coverage. The poverty/misery index in NDDC states is no better than that of any of the other states outside the purview of the agency. That should question its raison d’etre. Instead the federal government has opted to replicate and reinforce failure by creating five more agencies in the mold of the failed NDDC. This government must have other motivations for the path it has chosen.
The total budget allocation in 2025 to five of the six development commissions [NCDC is yet to be provisioned for] is approximately N2.49 trillion with the NDDC getting the Lion’s share of N776.5 billion for it to focus on environmental and social economic challenges in the Delta region; NWDC, N585.9 billion to target security, infrastructure, and economic development; SWDC, N498.4 billion for infrastructure upgrades and economic empowerment programmes; SEDC, N341.3 billion to rebuild critical infrastructure and foster resilience; and NEDC N291 billion to rebuild communities devasted by insurgency and promote economic recovery. The mandate of the upcoming NCDC will not be significantly different from the ones that have been constituted. There’s nothing in the charge assigned to these commissions that is not the responsibility of local and state governments. The charge that the state governors are corrupt, emperors and not accountable will not suffice. The creators and operators of these commissions are not, and will not be, less corrupt and dictatorial. What the federal government has done is to create entities to counter the powers of the governors, agencies to launder money for personal benefits and slush funds for political campaigns, a bridgehead for foot soldiers for electoral heists, among other sinister purposes. The boards and the managements of the commissions are populated with APC partisans and apparatchiks instead of technocrats. There’s no suggestion here that there are no technocrats in the ranks of the APC. No. But in this instance, the primary loyalty of the appointees is to the president and their political party, not to the regions, certainly not to the majority of suffering Nigerians. If the motivation is to impact people at other levels of government, the country would have been better served with a rejig of the revenue allocation formular in favour of states and local governments. We agree that there would be strong and cogent arguments against this thinking given the financial recklessness in the other tiers of government. But these arguments can only be valid and sustained if financial recklessness and impunity do not obtain at the centre. We dare say that they are worse in the government of the federation.
Since the era of President Goodluck Jonathan which set up the Oronsaye panel on the restructuring of the operations of the federal government, every regime has avoided implementing the report of the team which recommended, amongst other things, the pruning of federal ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs]. Instead more agencies and ministries are being created and the bureaucracy expanded. Since the Oronsaye Report federal ministries have jumped from about 45 to 50. The same for departments and agencies. The report which was submitted to government in 2012 and which implementation was projected to save government about N1 trillion and make its operations more efficient, was stalled until 2024 when the extant regime ordered its full implemenation. The irony is that the regime that demanded the full implemenation of the Oronsaye Report is busy expanding the bureaucracy by creating ministries and regional development commissions. The other alarming thing is the suggestion that large portions of the budgetary allocations to the development commissions will go into salaries, emoluments, overhead and ancillary considerations to the detriment of capital projects. Indeed, one of the commissions in the north has committed to importing thousands of electric tricycles to improve transportation in the north east. What that commission is planning to do, that’s if it had not done so already, is to export jobs from Nigeria and import inflation into the country. This is not to shame that commission because others may not do any better.
We can justifiably argue that similar commissions and agencies had worked in the past in this same country. However, such claims should be made in context. There was the Eastern Nigeria Development Commission [ENDC] in the first republic. There was also Northern Nigeria Development Commission [NNDC] in the north, and the Oodua Group of Companies in the Western region. These commissions worked wonders. They had to their credits the establishment of thriving government businesses including farm settlements, hotel chains, palm, cotton, groundnut, cocoa, and rubber plantations across the regions. In their portfolios were other profitable companies in diverse fields. They were efficiently and effectively managed such that there was healthy rivalries between and amongst the regions. If it worked then, why is it not working now. It would be because, among other things, the structure of the country has changed for the worse, and the values of the people have deteriorated. This could come across as harsh and exaggerated, but the fear and suspicion is that not many Nigerians are currently honestly and wholeheartedly invested in the country and its prospects for the future. Those who can are voting with their feet. Those who can’t have resigned to their fate. And those who are privileged and in the ruling elite are having a ball. Who needs a crystal ball to see where Nigeria is headed?
