By Ebuka Onyekwelu, Ph.D
The budget defense of the Southeast Development Commission – SEDC, has triggered a robust conversation around the need and purpose of SEDC and, indeed, other Development Commissions. Significantly, the contribution of Senator Tony Nwoye, Senator representing Anambra North senatorial district, on what should matter to SEDC, has gained prominence. Senator Nwoye called on SEDC to concentrate on physical projects and tangible infrastructures and not waste time and resources on conferences. “I want to appeal to you, and your team, let us dwell a lot on infrastructure. It will not augur well for you to go and spend a lot of money on conferences, investment promotion, $20 million dollars, $50 billion dollars, all those things; some of them are not realistic. I want to say it on record. Let us talk of how a man in Bende, a man in Umunnachi, Umudioka… can have a feel of Southeast Development Commission. Not an issue of $20 million dollar, $30 million dollar, we are not interested. I will not support Sir, my dear Chairman, tomorrow; they will say they spend billions on security. I saw here in your budget N3.5 billion for the regional security operation. I saw another place, N10.5 billion for the procurement of equipment, drones, and CCTV. I am not saying that security is not important. But, governors are the Chief Security Officers of the States. They have security funds. The Federal Government has a lot of money they are spending on Security…Let us see tangible development.” This comment has generated an enormous response from different quarters. No one has been able to fault the position of Senator Tony Nwoye. Ironically, even the tangible infrastructure mentioned by Senator Nwoye has the federal, state, and local governments focused on all of them.
As a way of reaction, Mark Okoye, the MD of SEDC, made a presentation during the budget defense explaining how the recent Summit in Enugu changed the minds of some IPOB agitators numbering 14. He also stated that the mandate of the SEDC is not limited to infrastructure development. According to Mark Okoye, “There were about 14 known IPOB members in the hall, who prior to that event, what they were saying was no retreat, no surrender. Biafra land, we only want this. The same people have done posts after attending that event for four days, and the response is ‘this is the first time I had the opportunity to contribute my own ideas to the development of Southeast Nigeria. No more Biafra land.’” Mr. Okoye then maintained that “Our role as SEDC, with your support, is not only infrastructure. We have to work on the minds of our people. Orientation. Get them to understand that what we are doing is for their own benefit and for their future.” This contribution made by the SEDC MD has not been received as a justified and fair reaction to the concerns raised by Senator Tony Nwoye and Senator Emeka Eze, who also complained that SEDC is spending so much on intangibles that cannot be felt. According to Senator Eze, “…Conference and stakeholder engagement taking away N460 million. If we must succeed, you must have this Commission as your private company. Manage every fund, since you know it is a scarce resource as your personal fund.” The irony here? It is the duty of the Senate Committee to oversee the activities of SEDC.
While the calls by Senator Nwoye for caution on intangibles are well-grounded, it is uncharitable for the senator to conceive of conferences as a mere avenue for wasting time and resources. Senator Nwoye’s plea for the SEDC to approach soft expenditures with caution missed it when he went deep dramatizing expenditures on conferences, to create an impression that conferences are useless or conduits for sucking public funds. This might be a plausible argument in a place like Nigeria, with the burden of official corruption, where people are always suspicious of the government and its agencies like SEDC. However, it is a different thing if the senator was asking for probity or due diligence in organizing and funding those conferences or other efforts geared towards capacity-building and investment promotion. Therefore, such posturing by Senator Nwoye is grossly problematic and faulty. There is no corporate governance without conferences. In this particular instance, the Southeast has a peculiar case of insecurity that is powered by misinformation and jaundiced symbolism deployed to hoodwink unsuspecting masses. There is, therefore, a huge gap among the populace that must be bridged through capacity building and funding in the form of venture capital. Senator Nwoye was bent on infrastructure and did not see the need to admonish SEDC to focus on, say, venture capital, given the commercial, industrial, and innovative potentials in the Southeast. What is infrastructure when people are economically disempowered?
Therefore, advocating a sole focus on tangible infrastructure not only speaks to a misdiagnosis of the crisis in the Southeast but is also a misalignment of the correct order of things. Before we talk of tangible infrastructure, we must first think of the people for whom it is built. Are they going to be able to manage and preserve such infrastructure through taking ownership, as their patriotic duty? Is it justified to build a school that would be burnt to the ground tomorrow, like many public infrastructures were destroyed in the Southeast during the EndSARS violence or by Biafra agitators? For that reason, Senator Nwoye, while he may be good-intentioned in his call for caution on conferences or capacity building in general, might have missed an important aspect of the Southeast’s challenge, and such oversight reduces the Southeast development conversation to mere sand and block debate. The greatest infrastructure a society can boast of is the quality of the thinking of its people.
The other point is that it appears that the SEDC, while committed to its mandate, might be pursuing so many things at the same time. From Mark Okoye’s presentation, it can be deduced that the SEDC is putting up efforts in diverse areas, apparently in a bid to cover all spheres of its mandate. I’m afraid that is going to cause a strain on time and resources with little or nothing to show for it, both in soft and hard projects. The SEDC should streamline its focus and narrow down to a few things that can act as a catalyst and define its essence to the people of the Southeast through impact. The Commission should carefully pick a few things and focus on them, with clear deadlines. At this point, what the SEDC needs is to demonstrate relevance by bridging any governance gap in the Southeast. In addition, the admonition by Senator Emeka Eze for the SEDC to be managed as a private company in terms of the attitude of its management team members towards the Commission should be taken to heart.
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