APGA Chairman Praises Pres Tinubu for Signing South East Development Commission Bill

The Board of Trustees Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, has commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for signing the South East Development Commission Bill into law.

InfoStride News reports that the bill was first introduced in 2017 by Hon. Chukwuka Onyema, representing Ogbaru Federal Constituency, Anambra State, in the House of Representatives, but it did not survive the second reading.

In 2024, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, revived and expanded the bill.

The bill was passed swiftly through the legislative process, with the Senate promptly concurring.

President Tinubu then expeditiously assented to the bill, resulting in the establishment of the South East Development Commission Act.

The Act aims to address the infrastructural and developmental deficits in the South East, stemming from the Nigeria-Biafra war that ended in 1970.

Chief Okorie recalled that the Federal Government, under General Yakubu Gowon, announced the policy of “No Victor, No Vanquished” and pledged to implement a program of Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction (3R) in the war-ravaged areas of the former Biafra, now the South East geopolitical zone.

However, the commitment to the 3R program was not fully realized.

“For approximately 50 years after the end of the war, there was no visible federal presence in accordance with the objective of the 3R,” Okorie noted.

In his statement from Abuja on Thursday, Okorie praised President Tinubu’s actions.

“It is in this light that I see the patriotic action of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in enacting the South East Development Commission Act as a bold step to heal the wounds of the civil war and restore to the people of the South East geopolitical zone their well-deserved and long-overdue sense of belonging in Nigeria.”

He expressed hope for sincere and honest funding of the commission to achieve its core objectives.

“I urge our people at home and in the diaspora to cooperate and collaborate with the Federal Government to help the commission achieve the lofty objectives for which it is established. It is said that it is better late than never.

After more than 50 years since the end of the war, the promise made then is about to be fulfilled under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”