Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has commended President Bola Tinubu for signing the South East Development Commission (SEDC) Bill into law.
The organization welcomes this move, seeing it as a key step towards addressing the region’s post-war challenges. The SEDC will focus on Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states.
This development is viewed as a positive departure from past administrations and a hopeful start to President Tinubu’s tenure.
Ohanaeze also commended the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Kalu and the co-sponsors of the Bill, adding that during a courtesy call to the National Assembly by the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the exceptional quality of Kalu did not go unnoticed.
“His suave, assertive, sagacious and visionary dispositions were very inspiring and a veritable source of hope. More importantly, he commands the respect and confidence of most members of the House of Representatives. It needs a mention that the SEDC which has remained in the pipeline for decades has come on stream through Kalu and his team.
“The Southeast Development Commission (SEDC) 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 the Southeast for decades.
“The SEDC 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. Gowon had assured the world that there would be three R: Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of the Igbo land as a result of war ravages.
“But fifty four years after the war, the South East has witnessed the direct opposite of the 3Rs, even in exponential proportion.”
Giving instances of deliberate and systematic actions of the governments after government to undermine Igbo which led to the South East having 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 the South East of Nigeria in the cold. No one should therefore look elsewhere in the search for the persistent youth restiveness and secessionist agitations in the region.”
The apex Igbo body said that with the establishment of the commission, the South East governors will now leverage the opportunity created to anchor programmes that will fully harness and promote the “industrial, agricultural, tourism, energy, commercial and investment potentials in the zone”.
Ohanaeze also noted the Commission will also help to create the much desired centrally coordinated security architecture in the zone; and more.
“A few days ago, the Minister of Works, Sen. David Umahi, at Abakaliki, announced plans by the Federal Government to construct 477 kilometre – six-lane Super Highway, traversing five states to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. According to the minister, the super highway will, among others, pass through Abakaliki, Enugu, Nsukka, leading to Abuja.
“The President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, is highly elated and sends a warm gratitude to Mr. President over these developments.
“The Ohanaeze Ndigbo has maintained 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. As it stands, President Bola Tinubu has shown a major departure from the Buhari regime by signing the SEDC Bill into Law; appointing Sen. David Umahi, a brilliant and prudent engineer as the federal Minister for Works, and Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla as the Chief of the Naval Staff.
“This is a quantum leap and a new beginning. An Awka man asked the wife, “ineme elee omanaese”?”
