An Igbo group, the South East Response Team (SORET) has protested the exclusion of the zone in the federal government of Nigeria’s loan plan, saying that it may be forced to take every necessary legal actions to ensure the loan is not accessed if the South East remained excluded from the zones to benefit the loan scheme.
Recall that the federal government, few months ago, applied for loan in the tune of $22.7B for projects cut across all the geopolitical zones excluding the South East. Available details indicate that Southwest will get $200,000,000.00 while south-South, excluding Edo State, will get $4,270,000,000.00. North West will get $6,372,000,000.00, Northeast will get $300,000,000.00 while North Central will get $6,531,000,000 while $5,853,900,000.00 is reserved for general expenses.
But in a press conference held in Enugu, the national coordinator of the group,Comrade Aku Obidimma pointed out that the South East has always been faced with marginalization, the height of it all being the exclusion of the zone in a loan bid designed to be enjoyed by all the geopolitical zones in the country.
According to him: “One can clearly see today that there can be no other time to be compared to what we have today where the people of the South East have been almost excluded and sidelined in the leadership of the country vis a vis the appointments made by the president, economic and infrastructural development as is manifest in the reluctance of the government in setting up the proposed South East Development Commission and other related matter”
On the group’s readiness to seek legal redress to press home their demands, he continued”we wish to once more reiterate our call on President Mohammed Buhari, the parliament and the international creditors to immediately put a hold to this transaction. Let to the project spread for this loan to be reviewed to significantly capture the South East zone. Unless this is done, SOREST will be bound to take every necessary legal step towards ensuring that the loan is not accessed” he concluded
