In today’s report, The North-East Youths Renaissance Assembly (NEYRA) has shown serious concern over the decision made within administration of the North East Development Commission (NEDC).
The organisation said in a statement after a series of project openings in Borno State that confirmed public events and observations made by important stakeholders were proof of problems within the Commission. NEYRA is pointing out that ,although , while the wording in their statement may reflect Northeasterners’ strong feelings, it is ultimately a plea for openness, responsibility, and institutional transformation. The organisation reassured its commitment to due process and national development, encouraging the federal government, media, and the general public to address the issues raised objectively and seriously.
You will all re-call that last week was a busy period in Maiduguri when about 10 diffrent projects executed by the North East Development Commission, NEDC, were commissioned in different parts of the Borno State.
Ordinarily, we should all be happy and rejoicing over the series of humanitarian interventions in the State by the NEDC and the subsequent inauguration of such projects and programs which brought together, eminent personalities from all over the country.
But the North-East Youths Renaissance Assembly (NEYRA) observes with serious concern the outburst of Borno State Governor, Prof Babagana Zulum at the occasion in which he publicly scolded officials of the North East Development Commission, NEDC
We were saddened by the turn of events at the occasion when the Governor in his speech, implied that the MD has arrogated to himself absolute power in running the affairs of the Commission without the involvement or participation of other key Management Staff, particularly the Executive Director of Humanitarian Affairs Directorate, Malam Musa Yashi.
That Governor Zulum publicly rebuked the MD over glaring lapses in the operations of the Commission, calls for grave concern and worry by all lovers of the North East region.
At the occasion, the Governor observed that honour was not given to whom it was due in the execution of the projects.He appears unhappy with the way and manner that the Humanitarian Affairs Directorate, which should have taken credit for the successes of the projects/programs was sidelined and completely neglected by Management of the NEDC.
At one of the events, the Governor publicly challenged the Managing Director of the NEDC, Mohammed Goni Alkali, why the duties and responsibilities of the Humanitarian Affairs Directorate were suddenly being handled by the “Executive Director, Operations” with no answer from the MD
The incident repeated itself at another event when the “ED Operations” instead of the ED, Humanitarian Affairs, read out the list of medical equipment donated to the State, but the Governor in his response, started by saying “in all that has been done, the only person to get the credit here is the ED Humanitarian Affairs, Malam Musa Yashi and we cannot thank him enough”
This happened in the presence of the Minister of State for Regional Development, HE Barr. Uba Maigari Ahmadu, some Members of the National Assembly and other dignitaries who clapped endlessly in support and acknowledgement of the Governor’s position on the Executive Director of Humanitarian Affairs.
Infact, most of the other Staff of the Commission were visibly shocked by Governor Zulum’s observations and outburst which confirmed that all is not well at the NEDC.
“For us, this is high time that something drastic was done by the Government to arrest this glaring abuse of power and authority by no other person than the MD who has consciously or unconsciously constituted himself as cog in the wheel of progress”, according to a senior Officer of the Commission who spoke on condition of anonymity.
We know that the North East Development Commission, NEDC has three Directorates, namely; Humanitarian Affairs, Operations and Administration & Finance.
Of the three Departments, the Humanitarian Affairs is considered the most critical and the engine room of the Commission as all activities and programmes revolve around humanitarian interventions upon which the Commission was mainly established.However, it was observed that particularly in the last two years, the Humanitarian Affairs Directorate headed by a Presidential Humanitarian Award Winner of 2022, seems completely neglected while the other Directorates have seemingly usurped its functions and responsibilities as Governor Zulum rightly observed.
For us as concerned Northeasterners, if the truth must be told, the share of the blame falls directly on no other person than the Managing Director, Mohammed Goni Alkali, who deliberately prefers dealing with the Executive Directors of Operations and that of Administration and Finance who is seen as his errand boy.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Press, we observed that contrary to the Act Establishing the NEDC, the bulk of activities and operations of the Commission, were being outsourced to the other Departments, effectively rendering the Humanitarian Affairs Department groundless and redundant.
So far, over 80% of all the major contracts and programmes of the Commission have been diverted to the Directorate of Operations, a situation that undoubtedly fired the imagination of HE Borno State Governor and the public query.
Any wonder then that these lopsided and seemingly fixed operational modality that Governor Zulum publicly scolded the Management of the NEDC with the hope of redressing and correcting the abnormality.
Beyond the incident, we have it on good authority that the MD is actively promoting acts of favouritism and nepotism in the organisation. For instance, there are situations where staff are employed and redeployed to Departments without following due process which is contrary to civil service rules.
These acts of favouritism is deliberately employed to buy blind loyalty and support from those officers in the course of performing their duties. They run contrary to public service rules and should not be entertained at all.
We are therefore calling on His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR and the National Assembly to urgently investigate this matter to unravel the real happenings at the North East Development Commission. The NEDC is one of the Zonal Commissions created by the Federal Government to attend to peculiar demands of our people. We cannot watch and allow the greed andpersonal idiosyncracies of a single appointee or persons, to recast the NEDC as an ineffective rescue agency while similar bodies across the country are reporting applaudable results.
