The South-East Millenium Development Goals, MDGs summit has ended in Owerri, the Imo State capital with a resolution that Igbo language should be the mode of communication in all gatherings of Ndigbo.
The resolution was part of the eight-point communique issued at the end of the 2-day summit on Thursday.
The communique read in part:
“That the summit should be sustained by the organizers and the board of trustees. “That the N50 billion Millenium Development Goals, MDGs trust fund is realizable and as such the fund when realized should be transparently guarded by these emminent members of the board of trustees. “That every community in Igbo land should be a beneficiary of the fund, this by implication means that every community should register with the summit in order to be captured. “The summit agrees that in every gathering of Ndigbo, especially in Igbo land, the lingua franca should be Igbo language”.
It added: “that every Igbo man or woman should be able to contribute to the trust fund no matter how small”.
The summit appreciated Ndigbo in diaspora for their support to the project and charged the governments of the five South-East “to make effort to mobilize all stakeholders for the success of the project”. In a report of an independent assessment of MDGs projects in South-East, the summit was told that the region was still below expectation in realizing the goals before 2015.
The assessment was carried out by the Department of Local Government and Public Administration of the University of Nigeria.
“This is an assessment of the impact of 12 years of Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, in South-East communities of Nigeria.
“In carrying out the study, well structured questionnaire measuring key MDGs were distributed to communities across the five south-east states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo state for their responses.
“From the analysis of the data collected from the various communities, it can be seen that majority of the communities are not aware of some MDGs project-MDGs quick win projects and the conditional grant scheme.
“With the responses from these communities, it is safe to say that South-Eastern states are far from realizing the MDGs come 2015.
“In order to find out whether the MDGs projects have impacted on the communities, a question was thrown as to the critical assessment of MDGs
Virtually all the respondents agreed that MDGs have not impacted in their communities. Some went further to explain that since there is no presence of MDGs project in their communities, there couldn’t have been an impact”, the report showed.
It recommended that “as the country strives to achieve the MDGs as well as join the league of 20 biggest economies in the year 2020, tracking development at the community level becomes imperative”.
On the worrying level of poverty among the majority of Nigerians, the report said that “poverty is a threat to prosperity anywhere in the world. We must address this to reduce social vices in the region.
“One interesting outcome of this study is that we are now aware that a lot is required of us, both individually and collectively to move our region to the enviable position we want her to be. All hands must be on deck if we must make significant impact”.
Earlier in a speech at the closing ceremony, the Secretary to the Imo State Government, Prof. Anthony Anwuka urged Ndigbo to pursue the collective interest of the region than selfish interests.
He described as unfortunate a situation where “any time election approaches, they will deceive Ndigbo will empty promises. They will start telling us they will build a second Niger Bridge and before you know it, some will say Igbo presidency project should be dropped”. “The 2015 is around the corner, some Ndigbo will be bought over and we miss out again on Igbo presidency; at what time will Ndigbo forget personal intrest and pursue the collective aspiration of our people?”, he asked rhetorically. “The year 2015 will soon come and go, we will miss that opportunity again and we’ll say let’s wait till 2019; I have not taken permision from Governor Rochas Okorocha to say this; I’m saying it as an Igbo son, it is about time and nobody can do it for us, we must do it for ourselves”, the SSG added.
Renowned academic and traditional ruler, His Royal Highness Prof. Laz Ekwueme is to chair the board of trustees.
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