From Kemi Yesufu, Abuja
There seems to be no end in sight for cry about the neglect of the South-East geo-political zone by the President Muhammadu Buhari led federal government as it has emerged that the region received the lowest allocation for developmental projects.
According to details of the capital allocations for states as contained in a report of National Assembly Budget and Research Office (NABRO) seen by Daily Sun, the sum of N28.22 billion was appropriated for capital projects for the five States in the region.
A breakdown shows that , Abia State got N6.93 billion (24.55 percent); Anambra State got N3.02 billion (10.20 percent); Ebonyi state got N4.63 billion (16.41 percent); Enugu State got N10.15 billion (35.98 percent) while Imo State got N3.49 billion (12.36 percent).
According to the document, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is the single highest beneficiary of allocations for capital projects with the sum of N209 billion (76.99 percent).
For other states in the North Central region ; Nasarawa State received N14.75 billion (5.43 percent); Kwara State- N5.19%); Niger State recieved N12.59 billion (4.63 percent); Plateau State got N6.63 billion (2.44 percent); Benue got N7.46 billion (2.75 percent) while Kogi State got N7.25 billion (2.67 percent).
Also President Buhari’s North-West region got a generous allocation for projects in the 2016 Appropriations Bill with capital allocation worth N73.7 billion for the implementation of 802 projects across the seven States in the zone.
For the implementation of ongoing and new projects in the seven states in the region, Kano State got N32.14 billion (43.61 percent) for 166 projects; Kaduna State got N19.82 billion (26.99 percent) for 292 projects while Katsina State got N9.52 billion (12.92 percent).
Also the sum of N3.56 billion (4.84 percent) goes to Jigawa State; N3.15 billion (4.28 percent) goes to Kebbi State; N2.53 billion for execution of 61 projects was allocated to Zamfara State while N2.97 billion (4.04 percent) went to Sokoto State.
From the total sum of N48.97 billion for the South West region, Lagos State got the highest share allocation of N16.14 billion (32.95 percent); Oyo State got N12.28 billion (25.08 percent); Ogun State got N7.95 billion (16.23 percent); Osun State got N6.52 billion (13.30 percent); Ondo state got N3.77 billion (7.70 percent) while Ekiti State got N2.32 billion (4.7 pecent) of the capital allocation for this year.
On the part of the North East geopolitical zone of N46.69 billion for the execution of 454 ongoing and new projects, Gombe State got N9.70 billion (21 percent); Taraba state got N9.23 percent); Bauchi State got N9.23 billion (20 percent); Yobe State got N6.99 billion (15 percent); Adamawa state got N5.98 billion (13 percent) while Borno State got N5.98 billion (12 percent).
The six South South states also got N35.31 billion for execution of 474 projects out of which 30 are ongoing projects, 438 are new projects while six are unidentified.
The breakdown indicates that: Cross River state got N10.75 billion (30.46 percent); Delta State got N7.55 billion (21.38 percent); Akwa Ibom State got N1.92 billion (5.45 percent); Bayelsa State got N3.21 billion (9.08 percent); River state got N7.29 billion (20.66 percent) while Edo State got N4.58 billion (12.98 percent) of the total capital allocation.