A top official of the South East Development Commission (SEDC) has faulted the conclusion drawn by a team of development researchers from Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA).

The rights group has stated that despite the approved budget of N140 billion in the 2025 budget to SEDC, no impacts, by way of infrastructural facilities, have been made in the South-East of Nigeria by the commission.

The top official, who contacted HURIWA, said the agency was only inaugurated around February of last year. The official said the rights group should have written a Freedom of Information request so that the Commission can transparently provide information on what has happened since the agency was inaugurated, including whether the N140 billion reportedly approved by the National Assembly was cash-backed.

However, HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko,  asserted that the said official couldn’t state exactly how much was released to them and did not indicate the exact projects or initiatives the agency undertook in one year.

The official challenged HURIWA to send an FOI request as soon as possible. The SEDC official, who asked not to be identified, said: “We were inaugurated in February 2025.” The SEDC was captured in the 2025 budget. So the budget has been implemented. You missed it totally.

“You can seek FOI and find out what has been released to us. It’s disheartening that, with your years in journalism, you could do this without verifying some facts, including the budget 2025, where we were captured as a commission. Please, I ask you to do a retraction and apologise to the SEDC.

“In the process, you have projected us in the commission as dishonest and fraudulent, while making the public believe that we have misappropriated N140 billion. This is an unfair and unacceptable type of journalism.”

HURIWA has, however, maintained that what it aimed to achieve through the advocacy media campaign was to encourage the hierarchy of the SEDC to render full and transparent accounts of what it has done in the last year that it became operational.

The rights group denied ever working to present any of the members and management of the SEDC as being fraudulent. HURIWA seeks accountability, and in accordance with Section 22 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999, the media-affiliated group affirmed that its objective was to encourage openness, transparency and accountability and wouldn’t be drawn into damaging anyone’s reputation.