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Hon. Obinna Chidoka. Hon. Member representing Idemili North/South Federal Constituency on Sunday said the devastation in South-Eastern part of Nigeria as a result of Civil War and the neglect of the region thereafter necessitates the South East Development Bill that was recently rejected at the House of Representatives.
Speaking on Channels TV’s, Politics Today, Chidoka stated that agitations in the South-East are real.
“There are several projects that have not been attended to since Civil War…the Niger Bridge we refer to was built in 1963 and the vehicular movement since that time has since changed.” He added
Answering a question the necessity of the bill, he said the bill wasn’t fresh saying it has been an idea they [lawmakers from the South-East extraction] have been nursing for a long time.
“Although the bill came after the development commission bills”
For the North-East, we will let that go because we are aware of the devastation that occured in the region as a result of Boko Haram menace but the case is not different with South-East.
Quoting Sen. Abduazeez Nyako’s words on the North East Development Bill, “In contemporary Nigeria, the magnitude and scale of destruction of lives and property that has befallen the zone [North East] can be comparable to the destruction incurred during the the Civil War” Chidoka added that since Civil war was fought in the South East, stressing that the devastation is still evident in the region.
He noted that the South-East region has the lowest number of states, ministerial slots, Local Government Areas and urges that federal governmnet makes itself more manifest in the region.
So many people have called for restructuring, and all these issues need to be addressed by the federal government.
For an average Igbo man, the rejection of the South East Development Bill at the House of Representatives resonates some of the marginalisation against our region that we have always been talking about .
Recall that the House of Representatives on Thursday rejected a bill seeking the establishment of South East Development Commission.
The House rejected the second reading of the bill after it was put to a voice vote by the speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara.
Chukwuka Onyema (Anambra-PDP), sponsor of the bill, had argued that the bill sought to tackle poverty and ecological problems confronting the South East part of the country.
He said the bill also sought to receive and manage fund from allocation of the federation account for the development, restructure and rehabilitation of roads, houses and other infrastructure in the region.