The wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, Mrs Aisha Buhari has declared her support for the establishment of the North East Development Commission.
Mrs Buhari who appeared at a public hearing organized by the House of Representatives Committee on IDPs, refugees and North East initiatives on the Bill for an act to establish the North East Development Commission on Monday at the National Assembly, made her position known in a memorandum she personally presented to the committee.
Similarly the Governor of Yobe State Ibrahim Gaidam who made a presentation before the House Committee said the government was in support of the commission and advised that the headquarters of the commission be cited at his state’s capital, Damaturu.
The Governor who was represented by the state Commissioner for Education, Mohammed Lamin explained that Damaturu is more central for administrative purposes than Maiduguri.
“Yobe State with headquarters in Damaturu has minimal federal presence in terms of provision of infrastructure and socio-economic development compared to the older states like Adamawa, Bauchi, and Borno.
“These three states in addition to Gombe and Taraba have benefited from citing of federal projects like airports, river basin development projects, dams, zonal offices of federal departments and agencies, including zonal commands of the Nigeria Police, Immigration, Customs, Prisons Service, Road Safety Corps, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, National Boundary Commission etc with virtually none in Yobe State, which negates the principles of federal character.
“Damaturu, the state capital, also enjoys a central location and therefore is most suited for the administrative convenience and easy coordination of activities across the states in the region,” he said.
Speaker Dogara had while declaring the public hearing open said their aspirations for the establishment of the commission were because “the North East suffers an exceptional poverty amidst little opportunities to push itself out of this unfortunate socio-economic quagmire.
“Our industries have all nearly collapsed, schools are dilapidated, destroyed or non-existent in most communities, roads are death traps and largely inaccessible and farming completely in virtual comatose due to insurgency. Besides, the region groans under the pangs of desertification, ethno-religious crisis, climatic factors, predatory diseases among others,” he said.
On his part, Chairman of the Committee, Rep Mohammed Sani Zorro (APC, Jigawa), said the public hearing was to aggregate opinions on the bill to establish the commission with a view to having more inputs.
He bemoaned a situation where the activities of refugees and IDPs were coordinated and executed by other agencies than the National Commission on Refugees (NCR).
The post Aisha Buhari attends NASS hearing to support North East Development Commission appeared first on The Whistle.
No comments: