By Reportcircle News
A bitter power struggle at the top of the North-West Development Commission (NWDC) has emerged as the unseen handbrake slowing one of Nigeria’s most critical regional intervention agencies, lawmakers revealed on Wednesday, as the National Assembly delivered a no-nonsense verdict: resolve the infighting or face the consequences.
Barely a year after its board was inaugurated, the NWDC is yet to gain momentum, and an explosive interactive session with the Joint Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives peeled back the layers of dysfunction choking the commission’s take-off.
At the heart of the impasse, according to the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Professor Shehu Abdullahi Ma’aji, is a governance crisis triggered by what he described as the board Chairman’s attempt to run the commission as an executive fiefdom contrary to the law establishing it.
Appearing before the Joint Committee Chaired by Senator Babangida Hussaini, with Hon. Dr. Sulaiman Abubakar Gumi as Co-Chair, Prof. Ma’aji laid out a stark account of internal paralysis.
“My biggest problem is that the chairman of the board sees himself as the executive chairman of the commission,” he told lawmakers. “For the last four board meetings, I have not been treated as the MD/CEO but as a board member being chaired. He has been occupying my office space with another board member, and this has stalled the development of the agency.”
The MD’s plea was blunt: without urgent intervention, the Commission risked suffocating before it ever took off.
The Senate wasted little time in responding.
Senator Hussaini reminded all parties that the NWDC Act is unambiguous: the board chairman is a part-time position, not an executive one.
“The law is clear,” the committee chairman said, urging Alhaji Lawal Sama’ila Abdullahi, the board chairman, to realign his role with the statute and allow management to function.
But the clarification came with a warning.
Beyond the boardroom clash, Lawmakers made it clear that the NWDC’s broader performance has fallen short of expectations, especially given the scale of responsibility it carries.
While praising President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s decision to create six new regional development Commissions, the Committee expressed deep concern that the North-West Nigeria’s most populous region is lagging behind others, particularly the South-West, where intervention agencies have moved swiftly from law to execution.
“We did not create this commission for press statements and social media visibility,” lawmakers said pointedly. “We created it to solve problems.”
Those problems are vast. The North-West, home to over 52 million Nigerians nearly a quarter of the national population bears the brunt of some of the country’s most severe challenges: mass out-of-school children, banditry, kidnapping, drug abuse, arms proliferation, climate stress and rising urban crime.
“These are not abstract issues,” the committee stressed. “They are daily realities.”
Lawmakers disclosed that this was not the first time they had stepped in to calm tensions between the board and management. This session, they warned, would be the last.
“We have intervened, we have voted, we have cleared the commission,” Senator Hussaini said. “This is the final time we will sit here to resolve internal disputes. We expect you to move forward.”
The Committee also criticised the Commission’s weak engagement with state governors, corporate Nigeria, development partners and donor agencies beyond initial courtesy visits.
“The Assembly has given you latitude to innovate, raise funds and generate ideas,” lawmakers said. “But latitude without delivery is wasted space.”
In one of the strongest messages of the session, lawmakers urged the NWDC to stop relying solely on federal allocations and begin building alternative funding models.
“The era of waiting for government releases alone is over,” a lawmaker warned. “If funding stalls tomorrow, what is your Plan B?”
They called for a large-scale regional summit to bring together technical institutions, private investors and development partners to unlock sustainable financing.
In response, Prof. Ma’aji presented a progress report covering January to December 2025, describing the commission as still being in its foundational phase following its establishment in 2024.
He outlined the commission’s scope seven states, 186 local governments and over 2,000 wards and detailed groundwork already completed, including visits to governors, participation in national policy retreats, development of corporate identity and digital platforms, and engagements with international partners such as the World Bank, AfDB, IsDB, UNDP, JICA, GIZ and the UK’s FCDO.
He also unveiled ambitious plans for regional investment vehicles in power, transport, commodities, water infrastructure and centres of excellence.
Financially, the commission received ₦145.6 billion, with 75 percent allocated to capital projects. Security dominates spending at 22 percent, followed by agriculture, education, infrastructure and health.
No staff have been recruited yet due to pending waivers, the MD admitted, but approvals are expected soon.
A UK-Aid-funded North-West Stakeholders’ Summit scheduled for January in Kaduna is expected to produce a regional master plan.
Despite acknowledging these efforts, lawmakers made it clear the honeymoon is over.
“We have heard your plans,” the vice-chairman said. “Now we want to see execution. One year of preparation funded or not should produce results.”
The signal from the National Assembly could not be clearer: the North-West Development Commission must move from power struggles to productivity, from frameworks to factories, or face intensified legislative scrutiny as Nigeria’s most populous region waits for the development it was promised.
