A group operating under the umbrella of North East Progressives Youth Forum on Monday urged two Civil Society Organisations, Al-Mushahid Initiative for Transparency and Accountability, and the Peoples Advocacy for Transparency and Accountability, to stay away from activities of.the North West Development Commission, NEDC.
The warning was at the backdrop of ultimatum issued to the Managing Director of the NEDC to respond to allegation of fraud amointing to N146,191,606,649.25, failure which the two Civil Society of have vowed to report the agency to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Nigerian Police Force, and other anti-graft agencies.
In a statement on Monday which was issued by the group Chairman, Mohammed Adamu Grema
which was made available to CAPITAL POST in Abuja, the group described the allegation as spurious, warning the CSOs to stay away or.riskes being sued in Court.
Part of the statement read: “The two kangaroos “transparency and civil society groups” have called on the Managing Director of the North-East Development Commission, Mohammed Alkali, to respond to allegations of mismanagement of budgetary allocations, amounting to N146,191,606,649.25.
“Ordinarily, we wouldn’t have dignified these urban hustlers and blackmailers with a response, however, for the sake of posterity, it has become imperative for us to set the record straight and expose this mobile Civil Society Organization for who they are and to equally draw the attention of the world to the successes recorded by the Managing Director of the Northeast Development Commission within the period of his reign.
“The group alleges that over 140bn budgetary allocations meant for the execution of some projects were mismanaged. We expected them to have known that budgetary provision is a mere estimate and not outright availability of resources. Only a jejune mind would assume that what is budgeted for in a financial year, translates to actual release in the midst negative economic downturn occasioned by the Rusia-Ukraine War and poor income from sales of crude, which is the mainstay of our economy caused by pipelines vandals.
“With the recent creation of the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit to complement the activities of EFCC and ICPC, a single commission can’t misappropriate such a humongous amount without consequences, more so that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has Zero tolerance for corruption.
“The briefcase CSOs stated in their media statement that their action is based on a rumor they got from some residents of the Northeast.
“The groups also said that community members and groups in the North-East had written to them, alleging that projects which the commission was funded for had been abandoned without an account for how the funds had been used.” There is nowhere it was shown that the Abuja-based CSOs traveled to the Northeast to verify such claims, which would warrant their provoking three days ultimatum. We wonder when a recently assemble CSOs started receiving petitions from the public to enable them to write further petitions.
“The group rather than being resolute, resorted to pleading with the MD of the Commission to respond to them. There is no serious CSO that would turn to a beggar of response from the head of agencies.
“It is our considered opinion that repeated letters emanating from the kangaroo CSOs and a final resort to media trial of the NEDC are aimed at blackmailing them into negotiation for pecuniary gains.
“We equally noticed that in their long statement, there is nowhere they made specific allegations against the Commission besides incoherently beating around the bush.
“The Commission, in line with its strategic plan to improve access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT), established ICT Resource Centres in each of the six States in the Region which are hosted in tertiary. At least 4,000 selected youths have been trained in those centres.
“The commission has ensured the Establishment and Construction of Burns Centres at FMC Yola, Adamawa, and UMTH Maiduguri, Borno States respectively. Covid 19 and other Contagious Diseases Laboratories in Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe States are equipped with State of the Art facilities. they equally Donated Ambulances, Ventilators, Hospital beds, and PPE among other critical medical equipment.
“In other to address the issue of housing, the NEDC has constructed 1000 Mass Housing Units at Ngwom Town, Mafa LGA, and currently, construction of 500 Mass Housing Units is ongoing in the States of Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe respectively.
“The Commission has equally invested much in the construction of Roads to boost economic activities and link up communities that were isolated by terrorist elements.
“In Borno State, the Commission is constructing the 22.5km Jere Bowl Area Roads Network (Phase I) while in Bauchi State, NEDC is reconstructing Kirfi to Gombe Abba 53km Road and drainages /culverts on Alkaleri-Futuk Road and in Gombe State, 53km Gombe-Abba-Kirfi Road.
“Other Road projects include the 54km Mutai-Ngalda Road in Yobe State, the reconstruction of the Kudzum bridge on Mubi – Bama Road, 32km Garkida-Dabna Road as well as 2.5km Road at College of Education Hong, in addition to Jabbi Lamba–Belel Transborder Road in Adamawa State and reconstructed Mayo Ndaga bridge in Taraba State.
“Due to the impressive performance of the Commission in various Sectors, the National Assembly has on different occasions, commended it for its superlative achievements and gave it clean bill of health.
“Similar commendations also came from other private and public organizations which even conferred awards on the Commission. We are not here to blow the trumpet of the Commission but if the truth must be told, within its short period of existence, NEDC has impacted positively on the lives of millions of people in the region and the number is still growing.
“As youth from the region, who have had reasons to bury our loved ones, watching our parents, brothers, and sisters sleep in Internally Displaced person camps, we won’t fold our arms and allow “Toronto CDOs” blackmail the head of the commission that is giving hope to our people through laudable interventions in the areas of provisions of shelter, water, schools, etc and collect huge sum of money to massage their ego and insatiable greed for luxury.
“We wish to call on security agencies to close in on these professional blackmailers to deter them from distracting the Commission from delivering on their mandate.
“Where they chose to continue in this only pathway, we the youth of the Northeast would have no option but to come out in our numbers to occupy their office to put an end to these shenanigans.
“We have resolved to unanimously pass a vote of confidence on the management of the NEDC. We are urging them to continue in this giant stride of guiding our region to recover from the setback cause by the activities of Bokoharam terrorist elements.”
