The Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission has gained more traction in rallying more players in the socio-economic activities across the region to support its economic and social integration efforts of the six states in Southwest Nigeria.
The commission has succeeded in enlisting more supporters for its projects through two major programmes. They were the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Southwest Football Forum and a workshop for media practitioners during which regional integration, its gains as well as concepts such as true federalism, restructuring and secession, among others were examined.
While addressing media practitioners and other professionals that participated in the workshop held at its Cocoa House, Ibadan headquarters, its Acting Director-General, Mr Seye Oyeleye, said all stakeholders have all to gain and nothing to lose in making Western Nigeria integration a success.
While the MoU was aimed at starting regional football tournaments to identify young talents and provide the platform for them to maximise their potential, the workshop was used to dissect the current agitations for restructuring of Nigeria. Other concepts deconstructed at the workshop included true federalism, regionalism and secession.
At the sports programme, Oyeleye revealed that Western regional football tournaments are able to create one million direct and indirect jobs with multiplier economic effects across the region.
The DAWN Acting D-G emphasised to participants at the workshop the need for corporate bodies and all citizens living in the region to support its activities as it creates the platform for interaction and template for developmental initiatives.
Emphasising that the DAWN agenda is not a separatist one, Oyeleye said it was just a project aimed at harnessing the potential of Western Nigeria for socio-economic well-being of its people and residents.
For Oyeleye, Nigeria is better when all the parts stay together. “There is nothing wrong in restructuring our country. It will make it better. But it should not lead to war or secession because we are better together,” he said.
While quoting the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dr Kayode Fayemi, on the strategic importance of DAWN, Oyeleye said: “The Southwest Regional Integration Agenda is an eminently sensible course of action. Socio-culturally, the Southwest is homogeneous. Ecologically, the region is characterised by lush vegetation and fertile soil. But the most compelling reason for integration is provided by economic geography.
“We must understand that the lines that demarcate the region into states are cartographical marks laid down for administrative convenience. In real terms, they are imaginary. In this respect, we share a common destiny. To a great extent, the social and economic challenges that we face are the same.”
He further added: “DAWN is widely acknowledged as presenting an opportunity for the states of Western Nigeria to act together and focus on critical development priority areas. The strategy is premised on the need to create a basket of collective actions towards delivering significant development outcomes to the people of the region.
“The vision behind the agenda is clear: it is to make Western Nigeria the preferred destination to visit, live, work and invest. Western Nigeria refers to the Southwest geo-political zone as a definitional boundary comprising Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo states. Apart from contiguous boundaries, the states have close historical and cultural affinities, common language, similar development orientation and trajectory; all of which is being combined as a leverage for the development of the region.
“The agenda seeks to commit the leadership of the region to governance actions and activities that deliver impactful results to the people, through deliberate regional thinking, planning, and acting together in critical areas of development possibilities and potential. It also seeks to mobilise the collective strengths, enterprise, assets and endowments lying within the states.
“DAWN is a regional development strategy. There is a need to seek resource maximisation through joint exploration of innovative solutions for achieving social, economic, human and physical development. The development agenda is therefore a united front of all the states in the region for a secured future for all, which takes into consideration the development of Western Region as a consolidated bloc of interventions, economic opportunities, resource optimisation, investment promotion, advisory, guidance and access; development assistance and multilateral support.
“It prescribes a compelling roadmap for achieving social and economic development, through a synergy of development actions that cut across the six constituent states of the region, hoping that successful models and best cases can evolve which would then be copied or replicated across zonal boundaries. It is hoped that Nigeria’s development process can then be fast-tracked in an atmosphere of competitive regional initiatives and actions across the country.”
He said the workshop was organised to enlighten journalists on the calls for restructuring of Nigeria, devolution of power, regional integration, and the debate on Nigerian federalism so that they would be better informed to play their role of agenda-setting from informed perspectives.
Participants praised the commission for blazing the trail in regional integration in Nigeria.
Giving a lecture on “Understanding Nigerian Federalism: Origin, Trajectory, Dynamics and Travails,” Williams Fawole, a Professor of International Relations at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, explained that the hotbeds of sub-national agitations for break-up of Nigeria has necessitated the need for negotiation of the country’s existence.
Fawole said: “I am convinced that Nigeria needs to be negotiated along the lines that promote unity, equity and justice for the benefit of its diverse people, not for the purpose of break-up, for it is better for all Nigerians to hang together so that none will hang separately.”
