Members of the Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Regional Development, yesterday, reprimanded the Minister of Regional Development, Abubakar Momoh, for allegedly favouring his home state of Edo in breach of the federal character principle.

The minister, who was queried when he appeared before the committee alongside the Minister of State, Uba Maigari, to defend the 2024 budget performance and the 2025 proposal, was accused of favouring Edo State over other states that were supposed to have benefitted from its projects.

The minister was also queried for non-adherence to the federal character principle by sitting 70 per cent of projects in the 2024 budget of the defunct ministry, formerly the Ministry of Niger Delta, in Edo State.

“Honourable Minister, I am happy that you are a product of the National Assembly. My constituents are not happy with this budget because it negates the constitutional principle of federal character. About 70 per cent of your projects are located in Edo State. Why?” Ogar, representing Ekwo, Ezza South Federal Constituency, queried.

Subsequently the Chairman of the House Committee on Regional Development, Eugene Okechukwu, thereby urged for the committee to be dissolved into an executive session to interface with the minister on the matter.

Earlier, while presenting the 2024 budget performance, the minister had told the members that out of the N20 billion allocated to the ministry in 2024 for the capital budget, N2 billion was provided for zonal intervention in the ministry’s budget by the House Leader, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, who is from Edo State.

The minister told the committee that the ministry’s total budget proposal for 2025 was N28.9 billion, comprising N24 billion for capital projects, N2.7 billion for personnel cost and N1.6 billion for recurrent.

He, again, said of the amount, N2 billion was reserved as a zonal intervention project for the leader of the House of Representatives.
Momoh lamented that the amount earmarked for the ministry to address the development needs of the five regional development commissions is inadequate.

He appealed to the joint committee to increase the budget of the ministry to enable it to address the development issues of the regions through the commissions.

The minister lamented that due to inadequate budgetary allocation, the ministry had been facing the challenges of abandoned and uncompleted projects; delays in project completion and poor performance.

He said: “The 2024 budget of the ministry was a budget for the Ministry for Niger Delta Development. Accordingly, the sum of N20.16 billion was allocated for capital expenditure, N1.127 billion was for overhead and N2.01 billion for personnel.”