The North-East Development Commission (NEDC) established to facilitate development in Northeast Nigeria, has been caught engaging in a corrupt act that has helped undermine development in Nigeria.
The alleged North East Development Commission (NEDC) borehole project at Bagoja community collapsed two months after completion.
In the deal, the NEDC implemented and supervised the construction of a multi-million borehole at Bagoja community in Funakaye Local Government Area of Gombe State.
Despite the alleged huge sum of money that was spent on a borehole project that ought not to cost over N3 million, the project collapsed two months after its completion.
Worse still, although the NEDC had shortchanged the people through the procurement process, it allegedly carried out the project that cost millions of Naira using fake and substandard materials.
Tracka officials who were at the project site say Bagoja, the beneficiary community lacks water and depends largely on the NEDC borehole project as a source of their water.
A project that has since collapsed after two months, leaving the residents frustrated and in predicaments in search of portable water.
NEDC is not the only offender, virtually all the government agencies in Nigeria established to facilitate development, have on many occasions been involved in the diversion of funds entrusted to them.
For instance, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs Nigeria (OSSAP-SDGs) are some of the agencies that have been found to have diverted monies entrusted to them for development.
Mr. Lawan, a resident of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, who claims to have a good knowledge of the NEDC activities, accused the commission of diverting monies entrusted to it for development.
“It is annoying that survivors of Boko Haram attack the North East Development Commission was established to rehabilitate are suffering and officials simply share the funds and abandon them”, Lawan said.
“North East Development Commission officials are living large at the expense of the people they are supposed to serve, this is a huge corruption the government must not allow to continue” Lawan added.
Nowhere has the Nigerian state and its people been shortchanged like a procurement process that is usually fraudulent and facilitated by government officials in collaboration with the private sector.
MAWA-Foundation could not immediately reach out to the North East Development Commission for an official response.