•Tinubu and Bassey
A renowned Nigerian architect and environmental activist, Dr Nnimmo Bassey, has said that scrapping of the Ministry of Niger Delta Development by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is insensitive.
The founder of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, an environmental think tank and advocacy organisation, said this in a chat with The Frontier last night.
“Scrapping the Ministry of Niger Delta Development and creating the Ministry of Regional Development is a specious mode of political engineering. Quite insensitive,” said Bassey.
Speaking further, he said, “In any case, having the new ministry oversee the activities of all Regional Development Commissions is an interesting action that could have complex repercussions. It may have been better to place the supervision of the regional development commissions directly under the presidency, rather than scrapping the Ministry of Niger Delta and creating a ministry of Regional Development.”
According to Bassey, the NDDC was a response to decades of devastation and neglect of the Niger Delta whose precarious situation had been documented by the Willinks Commission of 1957 which examined the destitution of minorities in the region. The North East Development Commission emerged as a response to the devastation of that region by terrorist actions. The South East Commission is rising because of the need for focused development in the region. The push for other regional development commissions will continue and that is a sad story of the failure of governments over the years to democratize development in the nation. The creation of a Ministry of Regional Development will raise several questions, including about the type of federation we are running in Nigeria.
“Without posing the questions, the answer is that the nation needs restructuring. A Ministry of Regional Development is a tentative idea that cannot be effective under the current centrist structure of government.
“Some of us had expected that the president would step aside from being the Minister of Petroleum Resources because he is too busy to pay attention to happenings in that sector, and the resulting hardship on Nigerians can be traced to the handling of matters pertaining to petroleum resources. In fact he ought to have added his name on the list of ministers relieved of their port folios.
“Overall, it is hard to see how the minor tinkering with ministerial positions will bring about the shift Nigerians so sorely need at this time,” Bassey added.
