Gombe State Governor Muhammadu Yahaya on Wednesday bemoaned the poor distribution of federal projects to the North-East part of the country, adding that it had hampered development in the region
The governor made this disclosure in the Government House while receiving the Chairman of the Federal Character Commission, Dr. Muheeba Dankakam.
He said that the road infrastructure in the North-East was making transportation of people and goods in the region extremely difficult.
He said, “We are really shortchanged with regard to the issue of infrastructure. Now, when rails are being constructed, one would have thought that the rail line which came to Gombe since 1962 would be extended to Yola and Jalingo so that we could connect with Cross River, the South East, and the rest of South-South.”
Yahaya said that he emphasized this because he knew that the job of the FCC was not limited to equity in the distribution of federal jobs but also included the distribution of infrastructure across the country.
He said that sharing social services and infrastructure with equity and justice was fundamental to the operation of the federal system of government.
Yahaya stressed the need for a deep and sound thought over the lack of infrastructure in the North-East among the governors and regional leaders so that the region would not, at the end of the day, be treated as a second-class group of people.
Speaking earlier, the FCC chairman, Dankakam, said that the cry of marginalisation by one section or another in the country had remained recurring decimal in the political and economic history of the country.
Dankakam said that the FCC was established to promote unity with the primary focus of ensuring a strong, virile, and indivisible nation based on fairness, equity, and justice to promote national loyalty and foster a sense of belonging among all Nigerians.
According to the FCC chairman, these are the virtues to which our forefathers, through the 1994 constitutional conference, agreed to foster with wisdom that such was required for a heterogeneous society like ours.
“The diligent, effective, and successful discharge of the constitutional mandate would eradicate feelings of marginalisation, neglect, and exclusion as well as prevent a threat to national peace and security which sadly many states today are being confronted with.”
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