The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide has warned against any attempt by those it described as fifth columnists to doctor the recommendations of the Steven Oronsaye Report, saying such negative action if allowed would be counterproductive to the nation.
The youth council stated that the directive by President Bola Tinubu for the implementation of the Oronsaye Report was received with delight by a vast majority of Nigerians, including Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide.
“We have always advocated that the cost of governance be curtailed amid the dwindling economic fortunes of the country,” a statement yesterday by the national president of the group, Mazi Okwu Nnabuike said.
The group said they were taken aback by a recent doctored report planted by fifth columnists in which they listed the Project Development Institute (PRODA), Enugu, as one of the agencies of government to be merged or scrapped.
Nnabuike noted that they received the report with great consternation considering the clear provisions of the Oronsanye Report, as well as the report by the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, which formed the Government White Paper.
According to him, the report provides that NASENI and NCAM be merged but with the exclusion of FIIRO and PRODA and wondered the reason behind the list being circulated in the media which included PRODA.
“A little look into history shows that PRODA was a creation of the defunct East Central State Government. It was created through an edict in 1971.
“It was charged with the broad function of generating and catalysing industrialisation by carrying out industrial research from the laboratory stage to the pilot plant stage and by rendering consultancy services to the governments, industries and individuals.”
“When the East Central State was split in 1976, the Federal Government recognised the need not to balkanise PRODA by the emerging states and hence took it over as a Federal Government Research Institute.
“Since then, PRODA has evolved under different leaderships, experiencing neglect from one time to the other.
“However, within the last few years, like a human being who miraculously came out of coma, PRODA again became a cynosure of all eyes, with a lot of reforms being initiated to take it back to the glory days.
“Without mincing words, it is clear that the same people who held PRODA down over the years are at it again. This time, they want to kill it completely for a reason best known to them, but definitely not in national interest,” the statement read.
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