By Hadiza Suleman
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has shown a major departure from the Buhari regime by signing the South East Development Commission (SEDC) Bill into law.
The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide stated this Wednesday while reacting to the new law. The pan-Igbo group said it received the news “with immense relief and joy”, adding that the bill “is a quantum leap, a hope renewal and a significant part of a new beginning by President Tinubu”.
Ohanaeze also thanked the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Benjamin Kalu and the co-sponsors of the law, noting that “the SEDC, which has remained in the pipeline for decades, has come on stream through Kalu and his team”.
Ohanaeze’s national publicity secretary, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, in the release, said, “The Southeast Development Commission is expected to manage funds allocated from the Federation Account for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of roads, and other infrastructural deficits suffered by the region due to age-long neglect. The SEDC will tackle ecological problems and related environmental challenges that have devastated South East for decades. It will go a long way to assuage the feelings of the Igbo with respect to the 3R sophistry by General Yakubu Gowon in January 1970.”
Recall that the 3Rs-Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction-were initiated after the Biafran Civil War to heal the wounds of the war in the defunct Biafra.
Ohanaeze said, “South East has the least number of local government areas, the least number of states, the least in political appointments, the least members in the House of Representatives, the least in the Senate and of course the worst in infrastructure. The foregoing structures are the federal allocation tributaries that have enlarged the coast of others geopolitical zones, leaving South East in the cold. No one should therefore look elsewhere in the search for the persistent youth restiveness and secessionist agitations in the region.”
Ohanaeze urged South-East governors to leverage the opportunity created by the commission to anchor programmes to harness the industrial, agricultural, tourism, energy, commercial and investment potentials in the zone, adding that “it will also help to create the much desired centrally coordinated security architecture in the zone”.
Ohanaeze also thanked FG for the planned construction of 477 kilometre – six-lane super highway, traversing five states to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, which would pass through Abakiliki, Enugu, Nsukka, leading to Abuja.
The president general of Ohanaeze, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, in the release, thanked Tinubu for the development, adding that “the cause of backpedalling by Nigeria is the Igbophobia-a pathological fear of the Igbo in a country they have sacrificed so much to uphold”.
The release added, “President Bola Tinubu has shown a major departure from the Buhari regime by signing the SEDC Bill into law; appointing Sen Dave Nweze Umahi as the federal Minister for Works, and Vice-Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla as the Chief of the Naval Staff.
