The North-West Development Commission’s troubling first steps, By Yusuf Hassan Wada

The commission still has an opportunity to correct course, build a credible institution and demonstrate that regional intervention can produce more than boards, meetings, courtesy visits and allowances

The Senate deserves credit for asking questions early. Oversight is most useful before questionable practices harden into organisational culture. But the committee’s work should not end with a dramatic hearing and viral clips. It should require written responses, audited disclosures, deadlines for completing the management structure and periodic reports on what has changed. Otherwise, the grilling will become another performance, forceful in the moment but inconsequential afterwards.

Last week, short video clips from the Senate’s engagement with officials of the North-West Development Commission travelled widely across social media. The clips were compelling not merely because senators were asking hard questions, but because of the numbers at the centre of the exchange. Of the ₦1.19 billion reportedly spent by the commission, about ₦943 million, which is roughly 79 per cent, was said to have gone to allowances for members of its governing board.

For an institution created to respond to some of Nigeria’s deepest development emergencies, this is an extraordinary way to announce its arrival. It is important to begin with the necessary qualifications. A legislative query is not a criminal conviction, and the public evidence available does not establish that the ₦943 million was embezzled. The board chairman defended the expenditure, stating that the board held seven meetings, adopted 63 resolutions and incurred legitimate committee and sitting expenses, while developing the commission’s operational framework. That explanation deserves to be heard, but it does not dispose of the issue. In public finance, expenditure may be authorised and still be excessive, poorly prioritised or inconsistent with the institution’s purpose.

The fundamental question, therefore, is not whether board members were entitled to allowances. It is whether a new development commission should consume almost four out of every five naira it has on board-related allowances, while it remains without executive directors, is yet to recruit its full workforce, and has struggled to settle something as basic as its office accommodation.

At the Senate hearing, the supervising ministry acknowledged that the absence of executive directors had weakened the commission’s management structure since its inauguration in February 2025. Lawmakers also questioned duty tour and associated travel claims connected to a visit to the Kano State governor, even though the commission’s headquarters is in Kano. The claim reportedly included air tickets, local transportation and other logistics. The arithmetic tells a troubling story. A commission can spend money, while still failing to build an institution. It can hold meetings, pass resolutions, undertake courtesy visits and generate files without producing a single visible improvement in the lives of the people for whom it was created. Administrative motion should not be confused with developmental progress.

Years ago, I heard the story of an agency in which the chief executive was effectively the institution. He was the administrator, finance officer, procurement lead, programme head and final authority. Support staff were treated as optional because the “oga” believed he could do everything. From a distance, this looked like efficiency. In reality, it was institutional emptiness. Nothing could move without one person, controls were weak, responsibilities were blurred, and the organisation could not grow beyond the preferences of its head.

The commission should publish a detailed account of the ₦943 million: the dates, recipients, rates, purposes, approvals and payment statuses. If the figure includes accumulated entitlements, committee work, travel or other statutory costs, the public should be shown the breakdown. Transparency would protect both the commission and the public. Silence will only encourage the conclusion that the board has become the commission’s first and most successful beneficiary.

The North-West Development Commission risks drifting into a more expensive version of that problem. A governing board without a complete executive structure, a management team without sufficient staff, and an agency spending substantially on internal governance before developing the machinery required to deliver externally. This matters because the NWDC is not an ordinary federal agency. Its mandate covers Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara, and includes infrastructure reconstruction, poverty reduction, social rehabilitation, stability and economic recovery. These are not abstract aspirations. They speak directly to communities affected by banditry, displacement, declining rural livelihoods, weak schools, inadequate health services, poor roads and limited economic opportunities.

The development burden is stark. The National Bureau of Statistics reported that 65 per cent of Nigeria’s multidimensionally poor, and about 86 million at the time of the survey, lived in the North. It also found that the incidence of multidimensional poverty ranged from 27 per cent in Ondo to 91 per cent in Sokoto. This means the commission is operating in a region where public money has an unusually high opportunity cost. Every naira absorbed by avoidable bureaucracy is a naira unavailable for classrooms, primary healthcare centres, irrigation systems, feeder roads, water supply, skills programmes or the reconstruction of communities damaged by violence. This is why the defence that the expenditure is permitted by law is insufficient. The establishing Act may authorise meetings and allowances, but no law requires an institution to lose sight of proportion. Legality is the floor of public conduct, not the ceiling of public responsibility.

Nigeria’s attraction to development commissions is not new. The Niger Delta Development Board was established in 1961, following one of the recommendations of the Willink Commission. It was followed decades later by the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission and then the Niger Delta Development Commission. The North-East Development Commission was subsequently created in response to the devastation caused by insurgency. More recently, commissions have been established for other geopolitical zones, creating a broad family of regional intervention bodies under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Regional Development.

The rationale is understandable. Nigeria has sharp regional inequalities, and some challenges cross state boundaries. Banditry, population displacement, grazing and farming conflicts, ecological pressures, transport networks, agricultural value chains and water systems cannot always be addressed effectively through isolated state projects. A properly designed regional institution can coordinate investments, pool expertise and pursue projects whose benefits extend across several states. But there is another possibility that development commissions become additional layers of political appointments, overhead costs and duplicated contracts. Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of public institutions. It suffers from institutions that frequently spend more energy maintaining themselves than solving the problems assigned to them.

Creating a commission is therefore not the same as creating development. Sometimes, it merely creates another address to which public funds can be sent. The NWDC should be different because the North-West cannot afford another institution that starts with ceremony and ends with bureaucracy. Its first obligation is to establish credibility. That requires the supervising ministry to complete the appointment of executive directors and allow the commission to recruit competent staff through a transparent process. It also requires a clear separation between the board’s oversight role and management’s responsibility for implementation. The reported disagreement over offices, non-implementation of board resolutions, communication failures and responsibility for processing payments suggests an institution already experiencing serious internal friction before it has delivered at scale. The disagreements may explain some of the delays, but they cannot become an excuse for indefinite underperformance.

The North-West Development Commission was created because the region faces an emergency of development. Its early conduct must reflect the scale and urgency of that mandate. The commission still has an opportunity to correct course, build a credible institution and demonstrate that regional intervention can produce more than boards, meetings, courtesy visits and allowances.

The commission should publish a detailed account of the ₦943 million: the dates, recipients, rates, purposes, approvals and payment statuses. If the figure includes accumulated entitlements, committee work, travel or other statutory costs, the public should be shown the breakdown. Transparency would protect both the commission and the public. Silence will only encourage the conclusion that the board has become the commission’s first and most successful beneficiary. Beyond responding to the Senate, the NWDC needs a regional development plan grounded in evidence, rather than a catalogue of politically distributed projects. It should identify a limited number of cross-border priorities, establish measurable baselines and publish annual targets. Its work should complement, rather than duplicate, the responsibilities of state governments, local governments and federal ministries. It should also establish and disclose a firm ceiling for administrative and governance expenses, with the overwhelming share of its resources directed towards programmes and capital investments. Board members should not need another Senate hearing to understand that a development commission must spend predominantly on development.

Security reforms, including proposals for state police, will not diminish the importance of this developmental role. Policing may help suppress violence, but it cannot by itself restore abandoned farms, reopen schools, rebuild markets or create legitimate livelihoods for young people. The NWDC is not a security agency, and it should not pretend to be one. Its contribution to security lies in addressing the conditions that make communities vulnerable: isolation, unemployment, weak public services, environmental pressures and the absence of visible government. A rehabilitated road that reconnects farmers to markets, an irrigation project that restores livelihoods or a functioning school that gives children alternatives can contribute to stability in ways that are less dramatic but more enduring.

The Senate deserves credit for asking questions early. Oversight is most useful before questionable practices harden into organisational culture. But the committee’s work should not end with a dramatic hearing and viral clips. It should require written responses, audited disclosures, deadlines for completing the management structure and periodic reports on what has changed. Otherwise, the grilling will become another performance, forceful in the moment but inconsequential afterwards.

The North-West Development Commission was created because the region faces an emergency of development. Its early conduct must reflect the scale and urgency of that mandate. The commission still has an opportunity to correct course, build a credible institution and demonstrate that regional intervention can produce more than boards, meetings, courtesy visits and allowances. But it must understand when a development commission spends 79 per cent of its seed funding and early expenditure on those governing it, the public is entitled to ask whether the commission has begun developing the North-West or merely developing itself.

Yusuf Hassan Wada is a Public Policy Expert and writes from Katsina State and can be reached at hasawa2011@gmail.com