Senate Passes South-west Development Commission Establishment Bill

•North Central Development Commission Establishment Bill passed for third reading

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

The senate, yesterday, passed the South West Development Commission Establishment Bill 2024.

The bill passed third reading during plenary, after the chairman of Senate Committee on Special Duties, Senator Shehu Kaka, submitted his report.

Kaka said the intents and purposes of the bill were well structured for socio-economic development of the South-west geopolitical zone.

He said, “If the commission is established through presidential assent to the bill, it will be like other development-driven commissions established on zonal basis.

“It will receive funds from the federation account, donations from development partners, among others, to address infrastructural deficits and tackle ecological problems in the region.”

The senate dissolved into the committee of the whole for the clause by clause consideration of the bill after which it was read for the third time.

In his remarks after the bill was passed, Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Jibrin Barau, who chaired the session, commended the Kaka-led committee for a job well done.

He said the South West Development Commission, like other ones, recently established, will address the infrastructural and ecological challenges in the South West.

Barau said the essence of the various development commissions being set up was to fast track development of the entire country.

He said, “President Bola Tinubu has assented to similar bills passed for zonal development-driven interventions and will surely assent to this one.”

Federal lawmakers in the National Assembly had since the creation of the North East Development Commission, been working towards the establishment of federal government-funded agencies for the development of their various geopolitical zones.

Members from the six geopolitical zones sponsored bills to the National Assembly for the creation of fully funded federal bodies for the development of their regions.

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has been in operation since 2000, when former President Olusegun Obasanjo yielded to agitators’ pressure. It was established to address the development gaps in the nine states designated as the Niger Delta following the devastation of the region by the activities of multinational firms in the course of oil exploration.

As a result of the Boko Haram terrorism, which had wreaked havoc in the North-east geopolitical zone since 2009, the North East Development Commission (NEDC) was established in 2017 to help resettle communities devastated by the sect.

The bill for the establishment of the South East Development Commission (SEDC) was signed into law by President Bola Tinubu to address the core issues of rehabilitation of projects abandoned since the end of the civil war in 1970. It was also meant to particularly address the massive erosion that was never evident before the war.

Efforts made to pass the bill had been frustrated twice under former President Muhammadu Buhari, first in 2017, and again in 2018.

The bill, which sought to establish the North West Development Commission (NWDC), also passed through legislative procedure and had been assented to by Tinubu.

The NWDC was charged with the responsibilities to, among other things, receive and manage funds from allocations of the federation account and international donors.

The funds will be used for the settlement, rehabilitation and reconstruction of roads, houses and business premises destroyed by multidimensional crisis, as well as tackling the menace of poverty, literacy level, ecological, problems, and any other related environmental or development challenges in the North-west states.

Tinubu justified his assent to the SEDC and NWDC bills in a statement by his former media aide, Ajuri Ngelale. He said the bills would accelerate development across geopolitical zones in the country.

The senate’s decision to endorse the establishment of the South West Development Commission (SWDC) yesterday, left only the North-central and South-south regions in the struggle.

For now, the North Central Development Commission (NCDC) and the South South Development Commission (SSDC) are at different stages of legislative process at both chambers of the National Assembly.

However, things seem not to be working fine for the South South Development Commission as the senate had stepped down the bill.

That was because majority of the senators, who opposed it during second reading, claimed that the oil rich region was already enjoying the 13 per cent derivation from the Federation Account, apart from other benefits through the Niger Delta Development Commission following the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act.

The bill sponsored by Senator Asuquo Ekpeyong, representing Cross River South, failed to scale second reading after a voice vote, where lawmakers unanimously declined to give backing to the bill.

In a debate that followed its presentation, the lawmakers argued about the propriety of establishing multiple agencies, particularly against the backdrop of an existing commission in the Niger Delta.

The bill was immediately opposed by senators who contributed to the debate.

Two lawmakers from the north, Senators Adamu Aliero and Abdul Ningi, described the proposed commission as a duplication of the existing Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), and advised the senate to drop it.

In the ensuing voice vote, the red chamber became polarised and after the ruling by Akpabio, who incidentally is from the zone, the bill was stepped down for further consultations.

The senate at its sitting on July 4 passed for third reading the North Central Development Commission (Establishment) Bill, 2024.

The bill, which was read for the second time in February 2024, was passed after the committee on special duties presented its report on the 2024 NCDC bill before the upper chamber.

It was first sponsored in the ninth senate by Senator Abba Moro, where it passed First and Second Reading, but could not get presidential assent before the expiration of the ninth senate.