By Charles Ibekwe
For a medium which hurts, destroys people and elicits growling messages, phone calls and libel suits, has little chance of survival. Ethically, objectivity, fairness, sticking to the facts, weighing facts against truths and demanding the other side are hallmarks of good reportage. But when misinformation, propaganda, and lies are shared as core truth, then a research is needed to find a path to viable answers that will establish facts that aligns with figures.
So much attention has been drawn to a malicious report of “146 billion naira fraud, abandoned projects by Nigeria’s North East Commission” published by an online newspaper.
Reading through the reports, I cannot but show my disgust at the unsubstantiated, fake, and mischievous article that has been pushed to the public space. It is unfortunate that such widely followed news media platform will engage in such smear campaign.
It is imperative to note that the North East Development Commission (NEDC) is the coordinating body for government, organisations, international and civic leaders, to rebuild the North-Eastern states in Nigeria into a safe, economically vibrant, ICT driven 21st Century region.
In the opening body of the article, the statement “The Leadership of NEDC may soon be investigated by EFCC and ICPC” shows how long they’ve been hunting the reputable NEDC for a great fall.
They further wrote that the commission has refused to respond to the earlier petition some people sent. NEDC is a focused body with lots of mandates to be executed, they are not a commission with an ample time for inappropriate chitchats, or shenanigans from anyone or some people. Therefore, it should be noted that if the leadership of NEDC didn’t reply to earlier petitions, it’s because the petitions were not sent through the proper channels. The Leadership of NEDC are highly committed to transparency in every area of their operations.
According to the online medium, NEDC was being petitioned by two transparency groups, PATAI and AITA, who have based their clowning core allegations on corruption, financial misappropriation and abuse of office, led by one Mr Bassey. He claimed that the N146.19 billion was the budgetary allocation to the commission, and also said the money was paid in full for uncompleted or abandoned projects.
They stated with temerity that, “The abandoned projects include the construction of a central workshop in Maiduguri, the construction of Birma Primary School at Kashimbila in Taraba, and the Madagali and Pinlla primary school projects in Adamawa. Others are the equipment supply at the Eye Clinic Centre in Azare, the construction of the ICT training centre, College of Legal and Islamic Studies, Misau, all in Bauchi state.”
From the malicious narrative above, they failed to tell everyone the specified budgetary allocations for all these listed projects, if it’s 50b, 12b, or what? This truly shows they lack the technical know-how of the modus operandi of projects execution. Since they claimed to know the full allocated fund, their allegations would have been of a good substance if they were able to provide comprehensive breakdown on the amount they believed would have been appropriate for the execution of the projects they were smart to point out, but they blindly went all in for a pull-down syndrome.
The medium rode on a the false narration of 146.19 billion fraud provided to it by the hungry NGO’s without substantiating the amount of budgetary for different listed projects that are needed to be executed, also not giving specificity to the time frame needed for execution, thereby revealing their level of absurdity in the face of professional journalism.
All these just to smear the leadership of NEDC, and I asked “For what reason, and to what extent?”
The newspaper ought to have known better that the leadership of a sensitive commission like NEDC, that’s fully under the watch of anti-graft agencies and other law enforcement agencies, won’t be that stupid to dive into the ruffles of corruption and mismanagement. Should we say that the newspaper and the NGOs had no clue of the many fully executed projects that could easily be googled by a 7-year old? Projects like the construction of 1,000 housing units? The Education Endowment Fund with a seed capital of N6bn. Three bridges had been constructed in Kudzum, and Wuro-Ngayandi areas of Adamawa State. Execution of 647 projects ranging from agriculture, health, education, energy/power across 112 local government areas in the North-East. With each LGA gulping at least N50m, the total costs accrues to N5.6bn. etc. These are just to mention a few of the many achievements by NEDC.
Alkali, the MD of NEDC once said, “the commission required at least N31.05tn to execute its mandate according to the North-East Stabilization and Development Masterplan in the next 30 years.”
Further in the article, there were claims that other abandoned projects, included the mass housing project in Dadin Kowa, Gombe, 200 mass housing units in Nguru and a 300 mass housing project in Damaturu, both in Yobe.
For simplicity sake, if they were claims of abandonment and incomplete task, shouldn’t it be a question of asking why, and knowing the factors for suspending for a while?
Unfortunately, the narratives have been further accentuated by some other media houses. It’s so debasing to think that in spite of all the facts they claimed to possess, both groups opted for media show-bashing and name-smearing when they could have simply tendered their grievances and petitions to the EFCC for proper indulgence.
As Abba Musa has rightly said, this regime is well known for transparency and accountability, and it is not possible for anyone to mismanage over N146 billion, and nothing will happen. The process to perpetuate such financial robbery and vandalism in a commission like NEDC is suicidal and never possible.
I believe that we should be consequently alarmed at any spurious allegations without recourse to implicating NEDC, which by all intent we know that the purposes are of poor taste and lacking any form of credibility as there are no such infractions in the operations of the NEDC.
As a matter of fact, the operational manual of the NEDC is such that is tailored to ensure accountability at all times and as such we should wonder how such infractions would have been effected with the multiple layers of checks and balances put in place.
Therefore, the leadership of NEDC is further urged to focus more on its mandate of returning the North-East to the commercial powerhouse it was before terrorism ravaged the communities and disrupted lives there. The leadership of NEDC must not let the strong focus on their mandate be shaken by any media propagandist that only causes mayhem for massive gains.
•Charles is a forensic analyst writing from University of Nigeria Nsukka