By Ikeddy ISIGUZO
NOISY headlines weeks ago propagated the love President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has for Ogoniland which sent a delegation to him. Whatever the Ogoni visit was about, it was an opportunity for Tinubu to recount how much he had done for Ogoniland.
The enlightened encounter was a ruse. Tinubu was not interested in any cleansing of polluted Ogoni land. His interest is in easing tension in the area was for oil production to resume – nothing more.
Last October, Tinubu showed his disdain for the South South by abrogating the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs which President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua created on 8 September 2008 and also set up the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Yar’Adua appointed a Minister and a Minister of State charged specifically with Youth Empowerment for the Ministry.
Tinubu threw away the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, on the same day he announced the Ministry of Livestock Development, of course to be funded with the resources of the oil wells of the South South. He did not care. A few media protests followed. Tinubu ignored them.
Once he got away with serving South South that affront, he moved on to other monumental decisions that nobody has tried to halt. A rash of bills for creation of regional development agencies which the All Progressives Congress had promised 10 years ago, and which Tinubu lifted for the manifesto of his presidential election, hit the National Assembly late in 2024. They were passed into law in unbecoming urgency. The reason must have been to make provisions for them in the 2025 budget.
Muhammadu Buhari was just two years in office when he created the North East Development Commission, NEDC. His excuse was that the war in the North East required urgent repair of infrastructure and building new ones to address the impact of the conflict. The remaining six years of Buhari’s tenure, he did not create a Commission for the other regions.
The North East Development Commission gives a good idea of the robust budget that the Commissions are meant to deploy to developing their zones. Unfortunately, if NEDC is the model, then the funds are not going into development. In the 2024 Appropriation Bill (details), NEDC coded as 0554004001 had a total budget of N131,254,101,172 out of N126,936,316,904 was personnel cost. Capital expenditure was N4,317,784,268.
For 2025, the proposed budgets for the regional agencies are:
Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, N776.53 billion
North West Development Commission, NWDC, N585.93 billion
South West Development Commission, SWDC, N498.40 billion
South East Development Commission, SEDC, N341.27 billion
North East Development Commission, NEDC, N291 billion
The mischief is crystalising with NDDC being listed with the regional development agencies.
In October when this disdain for South South was brewing, I had warned thus, “If Tinubu is not halted in his strides, he would count NDDC as the Commission for South South, ignoring the facts that NDDC has three States that are not from the South South zone, and that NDDC is a special intervention agency to deal with issues that are specific to the area.
Tinubu cares enough for cattle, sheep, pigs, goats to create a Ministry for them. The least he can do for the human beings in the Niger Delta (South South) is to leave the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.
“Only in June, Senator Adamu Aliero, Kebbi Central, former Governor of Kebbi State, in an argument to shut down an anti-grazing bills had said that animals were citizens of Nigeria and therefore had the same citizenship rights as us. An aghast Senate President Dr. Godswill Akpabio over-ruled him several times.
“Akpabio will soon be approving a supplementary budget for animals even if it is not for their rights, the money for funding animal affairs and their indulgers would be at the expense of the same Niger Delta that cannot qualify for a Ministry to manage its affairs.”
Is that not where we are today? Is Akpabio not the one hitting the gavel as money is dispersed to other regions except South South and North Central.
While Akpabio is the cheer leader of the silence on the marginalisation of the South South, here are the numbers and the weight of silence that has kept the South South out the opportunities of the South South Development Commission which the four regions are enjoying. No region comes close to the cash that the South South heaves into the national purse daily. Any slight drop in oil production affects the entire economy. When it comes to sharing resources, the region produces; everyone looks away as if it would have been abnormal for the South South to benefit from oil and gas productions that in addition devastate the environment of the oil-bearing areas. Akwa Ibom 10, Bayelsa 5, Cross River 8, Delta 10, Edo 9, and Rivers 13 have 55 members in the House of Representatives. Their output on the affliction on the South South is silence. In a House of 360 members, the House of Representatives members from the South South is 15.27 per cent of the House. South South’s six States amount to 18 Senators of the 109-member chamber.
What can this miniscule minority do? A lot, if these representatives consider the issues important, they would not be silent as if they are infected with “closed mouths” or have been sworn to silence. What about the six Governors who are busy wearing uniforms at meetings? They may as well not have heard of the Commissions hence their silence.
Our first intervention agency, Niger Delta Development Board in 1959, pre-dated our independence. The interests in protecting the oil-producing areas implicated the Eastern Region, Mid-Western Region, and were enrolled in the 1963 federal Constitution. On 9 July 1992, General Ibrahim Babangida signed the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission, OMPADEC, Decree, into law. It succeeded the Niger Delta Board of 1959. OMPADEC comprised Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Imo, Edo, Ondo and Abia States. Bayelsa State was created four years after. President Olusegun Obasanjo changed OMPADEC to the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC in 2000.
So, Abia, Imo, and Ondo States, who are in NDDC because they produce oil, have also become part of South South, while they are beneficiaries of the Commissions in South East, and South South? If the oil in the South South was in another part of Nigeria, would the argument that having NDDC disqualifies the region from new regional development agencies that the Federal Government is establishing? What is the reason for the exclusion of the North Central?
When will we start building a nation where no man is oppress?
Finally…
PA Ayo Adebanjo, a fearless, fierce fighter for freedoms, joined his ancestors on Friday, 14 February 2025 at 96. He was one of a few who held to the truth as he knew it. He was consistent in his strive for equal rights and justice for all through the efforts to return some of the powers that the federal government had hijacked to the States, and by extension the Local Governments. He managed his life well and very importantly; he had character that deterred him from flowing with the sirocco of Nigerian politics. He will be missed. May the almighty rest him.
PS: Watch out as those who opposed Pa Adebanjo, betrayed him, lied against him, would line up to leverage his passing for momentary resurrection of their politics of “anywhere belly face na road”.
ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues
