March 26, 2024

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the North-East Development Commission (NEDC), Alhaji Mohammed Goni Alkali on Tuesday, March 26, expressed concern over the hindrance caused by insurgents and their activities in accessing the hinterlands of the north-eastern states.

He said the obstacle has resulted in a slowdown of rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in the states.

He stated: “By now, we thought that insurgent activities in the Northeast would have been over, while we moved in to execute our mandate, unfortunately, we could not gain access to certain places up till now because of Boko Haram activities. We have different projects lined up for execution in some states, but no access yet.

“We are however hopeful that with the renewed efforts of securing some of the areas, we will be able to execute the projects contained in the 11 Pillars of our mandate.”

Speaking during a meeting with the post-mortem sub-committee of the Federal Account Allocation Commission (FAAC) visit the NEDC office in Abuja, Alkali said there are about 600 different development projects to be implemented in the six states of the zone.

He told the committee led by its chairman, Kabir Mohammed Mashi that funding, lack of access to some areas as well as insurgent activities were causing delays in the implementation of some of the projects.

He said the Commission’s Master Plan covering 11 strategic areas from 2020 to 2030 included peacebuilding, reactivation of agricultural activities, healthy citizenship, education technology and innovation, trade and investment, industrialisation as well as the development of infrastructures amongst others.

Alkali stated that given the impact of the destruction of infrastructures in the Northeast due to the activities of insurgents, it would require not less than 30 trillion naira to fix the infrastructures in the 1048 wards of the six states in the zone.

The managing director said at the start of the rehabilitation efforts by the Commission, it was thought that Public, Private Partnership (PPP) would drive the implementation of the projects, but regretted that there have been some drawbacks in the area.

Alkali expressed hope that external stakeholders would still support the Commission as there are lots of grounds to cover regarding the rehabilitation and resettlements of victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in the region.

The chairman of the FAAC sub-committee, Alhaji Mashi said their visit was aimed at interacting with the leadership of the Commission to explore possible areas of collaboration and support for the NEDC.

Mashi said the sub-committee was established to carry out extensive work on data and other relevant information for ease of administration and effectiveness in the management of scarce resources of all tiers of the government.

Mashi said: “We are here to see how we can support you and work together with you, and further monitor the progress you have made since the establishment of the North-East Development Commission.”