Commission takes off as PCNI winds down

By Victoria Ojeme & Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA—Chairman of the North East Development Commission, NEDC, Major-General Paul Tarfa (retd) has called on stakeholders to up their games and be fearless in addressing the security challenge in the Northeast.

Tarfa spoke at a roundtable review of the Northeast peace building initiative in Nigeria organised by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution, IPCR, in Abuja.

He was represented at the meeting by a Federal Commissioner representing the North East in the Commission, Chief Sabo Kente.

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Tarfa said there was need to fearlessly confront vested interests that took advantage of war and crisis in the area.

The Chairman said “As the stakeholders in the adventure of the development of mankind, we must be courageous if we honestly want to save lives, stabilise the situation, rebuild lives and communities for the future. Then we must courageously interrogate our conscience, re-examine our character and evaluate the integrity of our intentions. We must be fearless in confronting vested interests who are profiteers and merchants of war, chaos and crisis.

“We must re-calibrate our principles to be consistent with the fundamental values that uphold the dignity of humanity.”

According to him, “as stakeholders in national and international development for the advancement of the course of humanity there is need to discourage those who dubiously seek to exploit the vulnerable. We must be principled toward deconstructing and confronting clandestine atrocious intentions of some development actors who dubiously seek to always exploit the weak and vulnerable for selfish gains.”

The Director-General, IPCR, Prof. Bakut T. Bakut, said among others, “there is therefore need to engage multilateral peace-building efforts to combat radicalisation, ethno-religious tendencies to help the Northeast Development Commission achieve its objectives.”

Meanwhile, the Presidential Committee on North East Initiative, PCNI, yesterday wound down its operations to allow for a successful take off of the NEDC

At an operational briefing in Abuja to appraise the new management of the NEDC of its activities, PCNI Vice Chairman,  Tijani Tumsah, who received the NEDC team, said the presidential initiative began in November 2016 following the wave of insecurity in the north east with all its attendant destruction of infrastructure and displacement of the local population.

According to him, the presidential order gave the PCNI the mandate to serve as a primary national coordination and advisory body for humanitarian, transformation, and developmental efforts in the zone, and to achieve peace, stability, socio-economic rehabilitation, reconstruction and long-term sustainable development of the area.

On his part,  Chairman of NEDC,  thanked the PCNI led by Lt. Gen. T. Y. Danjuma (retd) for doing a good job to address the challenges facing the people of the north east zone.

Tarfa said the new commission would pick the gauntlet and continue from where the PCNI stopped its activities, saying “But don’t forget that we are a commission. So, we are also working on a master plan for which we are established. Wherever they have stopped, we continue.”