Protocols:
I warmly welcome everyone who has made out time to participate in this very important Public Hearing on the North East Development Commission Bill which seeks to lay a concrete legal framework to remedy the grave social dislocation and progressive socio economic devastation of the North Eastern states of Nigeria occasioned by the destructive escapades of the Boko Haram insurgency.
2. As noted at similar occasions in the recent past, Public Hearing is a governance window by the legislature in the promotion of citizens’ participation in the law making process and by implication in governance. I therefore wish to encourage all of us here seated to participate zealously by offering our views and opinion with total commitment in the confidence that we are thereby contributing towards quality of legislation that we all desire.
3. Our aspirations for the establishment of the commission are not far fetched, even though there is poverty across Nigeria, in comparative terms, the North East suffers an exceptional poverty amidst little opportunities to push itself out of this unfortunate socio economic quagmire. Our industries have all nearly collapsed, schools are dilapidated, destroyed or non-existent in most communities, roads are death traps and largely inaccessible and farming completely in virtual comatose due to insurgency. Besides, the region groans under the pangs of desertification, ethno-religious crisis, climatic factors, predatory diseases among others.
