NCDC TO UNVEIL 20-YEAR DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR NORTH CENTRAL

 

Stakeholders, governors, private sector and experts converge in Abuja to shape region’s economic future

By Okwo Romeon Abuja 

The North Central Development Commission (NCDC) is to convene a landmark two-day summit in Abuja this month to shape a 20-year economic, infrastructure and social development blueprint for one of Nigeria’s most strategically important but unevenly developed regions.

The maiden North Central Stakeholders’ Development Summit, scheduled for 14 and 15 September at the Abuja Continental Hotel, will bring together political leaders, traditional rulers, government institutions, academics, investors, development partners, youth and women organisations and representatives of persons with disabilities.

Under the theme, “The Great Leap Forward: A 20-Year Economic, Infrastructural and Social Development Plan for the North Central Region,” the summit is expected to move beyond short-term interventions towards a coordinated regional strategy capable of guiding investment and public policy over two decades.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is expected to attend as Distinguished Guest of Honour, while Vice-President Kashim Shettima is expected as Special Guest.

The gathering will also bring together former heads of state Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, who are expected to attend as Fathers of the Day. Air Vice Marshal Mohammed Ndatsu Umaru (rtd), a former military governor of Kano and Kwara states, will chair the occasion.

Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State, chairman of the North Central Governors’ Forum, will serve as Chief Host alongside the governors of the other North Central states and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory.

At the heart of the summit is an attempt to answer a question that has long confronted the region: how can the North Central convert its substantial human, agricultural, mineral and geographic assets into sustained economic growth and improved living standards?

The keynote address will be delivered by Professor Iorwuese Hagher, an academic, diplomat, politician and administrator, who is expected to lead discussions on the need for a long-term and coordinated approach to regional development.

For the NCDC, the proposed blueprint represents an opportunity to bring together development priorities that have often been pursued separately by different governments and institutions.

The commission's chairman, Barrister Cosmas Akighir, said the summit would provide a platform for stakeholders to examine the region's development challenges and opportunities and establish a shared vision for its transformation.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive of the commission, Dr Cyril Yiltsen Tsenyil, said the initiative was intended to galvanise stakeholders within and beyond the region and align North Central's priorities with the Federal Government's Renewed Hope Agenda.

He also emphasised the importance of partnerships, arguing that the scale of the region's development needs could not be met by government alone.

That emphasis on collaboration is likely to be central to the summit's deliberations. The proposed plan is expected to consider investment, infrastructure, economic growth, innovation and social development alongside the region's wider human-development needs.

The summit's steering committee chairman, Alhaji Suleiman Baba Ali, said the commission was working with its technical partner, Phillips Consulting, to ensure that the discussions produce practical outcomes rather than another set of broad policy declarations.

The second day of the summit will feature panel discussions, technical and breakout sessions, side meetings and other engagements intended to translate the broad ambition of the 20-year plan into more concrete priorities.

For a region stretching across Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger and Plateau states, alongside the Federal Capital Territory, the stakes are considerable. The North Central occupies a strategic position in Nigeria's political and economic geography and contains significant agricultural resources, mineral deposits, commercial centres and a rapidly expanding young population.

Yet its development trajectory has also been shaped by persistent infrastructure deficits, insecurity, unemployment, weak industrial capacity and uneven access to basic social services.

The NCDC summit therefore comes at a critical moment, as regional development agencies across Nigeria seek to move from fragmented interventions towards longer-term planning.

The commission says the ultimate objective is to secure a broad stakeholder consensus around a development framework that can survive changes in political administration and provide continuity in public investment.

Whether the proposed 20-year blueprint can achieve that ambition will depend not only on the quality of the plan emerging from Abuja, but also on the political will, financing, institutional coordination and accountability required to implement it.

The September summit will be the first major test of that ambition.

For the North Central, the challenge is no longer simply to identify its problems, but to agree on where the region wants to be in 20 years — and how it intends to get there.