Ekweremadu charges Buhari on assent to S/East Dev Commission Bill

Ike Ekweremadu

Immediate past deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu has charged President Muhammadu Buhari to reconsider his earlier decision not to sign the South East Development Commission Bill passed by the Eighth National Assembly.

He spoke while contributing to the North West Development Commission Bill sponsored by Senator Barau Jibrin (APC Kano Norh), which passed second reading on the floor of the upper legislative chamber.

According to him, assent to the bill would ensure rapid development of the South East geo-political zone.

Ekweremadu wondered why the President signed only the North East Development Commission Bill and rejected that of the South East whereas the Eighth National Assembly passed both bills and transmitted them to President  Buhari for his assent.

He therefore challenged the Executive arm to be more proactive and less discriminatory in attending to such bills that would make for rapid development of the six geo-political zones in the country.

Ekweremadu called on the leadership of the Senate to set aside a day to consider and pass all the pending bills on development commissions for the remaining four geopolitical zones in the country and transmit same to the President for his assent.

In his lead debate, Senator Jibrin said the establishment of the North West development commission would act as a catalyst to develop the arrays of potentials of the region as well as address the gap in the infrastructural development of the area.

According to him, the region has contributed immensely to the overall development of Nigeria in terms of agriculture and other areas of endeavour yet the region remains hugely underdeveloped.

He noted that what the region requires now from the federal government is the support to develop its infrastructure and educate its seeming youths so as to drive the process of developing the zone in its entirety in order to grow at per with the more developed zones in the country.

He lamented that the zone has the highest population of people among the six geopolitical zones in the country with about 70 percent of the population consisting of the youth.