With a landmass bounded by the River Niger on the western front, the riverine Niger Delta on the southern front and Cameroon to the east, this space is the indigenous homeland of the Igbo People (Ala Igbo) of Nigeria. Apart from hard work, all other adjectives typically used in characterising the people that inhabit this landmass in Nigeria’s’ context are on the negative – marginalisation, deprivation, alienation, injustice etc.
Following the loss of the 1967 to 1970 civil war and the failed General Gowon’s policy of Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation (the 3Rs), the Igbos have had it tough. Without any support and being seen as the enemy by the other competing interests in the Nigerian space, they came out of the war battered and broken.
Over the years, they have come back relatively strong, through self-help, resilience, hard work, apprenticeship and the associated delay gratification and above all, blessings from their ‘Chi’. For those whom the gods have set on a journey, the path may be rugged but reaching their destination is assured. Despite their significant contribution to the Nigerian State, the Igbos have been further marginalised, deprived and unjustly treated in Nigeria’s flawed federal structure.
The reintegration of the Igbos into Nigeria’s mainstream has remained elusive, a pipe dream. Until now, no genuine effort or commitment on the part of government at federal level has been implemented to reverse this negative labelling.
Will the creation of the South East Development Commission (SEDC) change the narrative. Could it be a vehicle through which the southeast will be redefined. We have for so long been burdened by the events of the lost civil war for well over 50 years and any opportunity to genuinely unburden the load tied to the lost war is most welcome.
It is time to chart a new course and move ahead. Mr Mark Okoye the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) / Director of SEDC and his board must see this as a clarion call to duty. Mr Okoye must see his high office as not just a chief executive but from a historical perspective, a call to BRIDGE the chasm left by the years of the ‘locusts’ occasioned by three hard years of fighting in the trenches by a people who simply wanted equity, justice and fair play from a flawed federal arrangement.
The SEDC must sit and articulate the humongous development challenges facing the southeast. It could be in the form of roadmap or blueprint. Whatever colour or name the document may have, it should be non-partisan. It must capture all facets of integrated development which will be acceptable to all stakeholders.
Such blueprint should be sacrosanct and not to be tampered with except following rigid consultation with all stakeholders. The idea of a blueprint that is sacrosanct to all member states is very important to the success of the commission as it will truncate the current practice across the component states and the country at large where the chief executives of the states call the shots on projects to be executed.
The practice of the chief executives being in charge even in matters where they have limited knowledge about has survived over the years due to the absence or near comatose nature of the institutions responsible for project planning and delivery. The blueprint will also nip in the bud the uncommon practice of pork barrelling, poor decision making by similar commissions where partisan political interference, political patronage and the associated gross mismanagement of funds are the norm.
A paradigm shift from the status quo underlies the success of the commission. We must remember the adage which says that those who want to go to the moon must look up to the sky. The SEDC must not play the proverbial ostrich, with head stuck in the sand.
The challenges facing the commission if I may paraphrase the CEO is undeniably huge. Across the five states, the scourge of mass wasting of land resource is unprecedented and an existential threat to the southeast region. There are 2,500 active erosion sites within the SEDC domain.
With a landmass of approximately 29.5 thousand square kilometres and a population close to 36 million people, at the rate which land is lost, it is a no brainer to identify that among other competing demands, the fight against erosion should be a cardinal focus of the commission. We must not forget that our forefathers use to say that wisdom demands that one must secure a space to put a mat on before purchasing one. Apart from the head-on fight against the scourge of erosion, the commission must be fighting on numerous other fronts.
The issue of power, integrated power engineered through traditional or pumped hydro schemes or gas turbines should be on the cards. Recently, I was privy to an early-stage discussions on a privately funded hydro scheme, designed to deliver 750MW of electricity. The catchphrase here is privately funded.
Though Nigeria or do I say ‘Wike’s’ country is typified by impunity where fight over political structure which has become a theatre of the absurd take’s precedence over the needs of the governed. Or do I say Aliero’s country where a ‘senior’ citizen argues openly on a national television without shame, where he puts on the same scale an itinerant Igbo trader who rents or owns a shop where he trades his wares, makes contributions to his host community with a herdsman who knowingly or inadvertently trespasses unto someone’s property with his cattle and eats up cash crops and farm produce belonging to his would be host community.
The SEDC in collaboration with the state authorities must find a way to extricate the southeast from the excesses of Nigeria. It must be made attractive for private investment with enabling laws that guarantees a return on investment. Unlocking the ‘landlocked’ southeast through man-made canal should be on the cards if not on the short-term priority list, then on the long-term list.
Mr Okoye must not forget that the American’s in the 1800s thought of moving ships from their east to the west coast and the Panama Canal was born thereby bridging the long-distance travel through southern America. Similar story of absolute need underlies the building of Suez. Other than the big-ticket items alluded to above, the commission must collaborate with the states in the education sector, rail network development, social intervention projects and industrialisation that will assist in creating jobs for the people of the region.
We are a people in need. Having survived this far, largely through individual self-effort driven by the negative tag associated with a defeated people and the damage caused by the ill-conceived and abandoned 3Rs, the establishment of the commission is an opportunity to think BIG and strategically. It is by so doing can the lost years be recovered and the negative perception of ‘ndi Igbo’ managed. To survive, the path taken by other similar commissions must be a cautionary tale.
Mr Okoye the CEO and Dr Nwoga who is the chairman of the commission and their colleagues at the head of the commission must hold their guards and keep the elephants away from the China shop. This opportunity must not be missed. The spade of work must begin in earnest.
Ctedit:The Guardian