Northeastern States to Forfeit 15% Monthly Allocation for Northeast Development Commission

The six non-oil producing states, rated amongst the poorest in Nigeria, will have to forfeit 15 per cent of their income from the Federation Account to enable the new commission help them fix their states which had been destroyed by Boko Haram.

This is coming exactly two months after Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo disclosed in Maiduguri, Borno State, during a multi-sectoral stakeholders’ roundtable on North East that the Presidential Initiative for Northeast-Nigeria (PINE) will be spending the sums of N97 billion and N116 billion on the short term and long term basis respectively in the rebuilding and development of the Boko Haram-ravaged region within five years’ time frame.

The Nigerian Senate said it was determined to help in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the North East region after years of devastation by the Boko Haram insurgency, and hopes that if the bill seeking the establishment of the NDC fully comes on board anytime in 2016, the commission would have to rely on the 15 per cent per cent of the six states’ grants as well as three per cent of the total annual budget of any solid minerals extraction mining company operating in the troubled North East states, including agricultural processing companies, as a source of the commission’ funding.

The bill also wants a chunk of the 50 per cent of the funds due to member states of the commission from the Ecological Fund to be channelled into the coffers of the new commission.

The 18 senators from the six North East states sponsored the bill as representatives of theirs states: Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe Taraba and Yobe.