BEVERLY HILLS, May 18, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government appears set to rehabilitate areas and communities ravaged by Boko Haram as it began on Monday the assessment of such areas in Borno State.
The assessment of the areas is to pave way for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the affected areas so that the displaced residents of the ravaged communities could return to their homes.
Borno State deputy governor, Alhaji Zannah Mustapha, Monday in Maiduguri, received the Federal Government inter ministerial committee on the assessment, led by the Director, Search and Rescue of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Air Commodore Charles Otegbade.
Speaking at the meeting with the deputy governor, Otegbade said: “We are here to assess the level o
f destructions created by the insurgents and recommend to the Federal Government, so that the needed funds will be provided.”
He also appealed to the state Government to assist the committee in its assignment, so as to furnish the Federal Government with the actual level of destruction to enable the state access the Victims Support Fund.
According to him, “80 percent of the Borno communities are living in Maiduguri hence, the need for NEMA to continue supporting the Borno state Government, as a chunk of the Federal allocation to the state was spent on maintaining the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).”
The leader of the delegation also said they were in Borno to deliver the monthly relief materials from NEMA to the IDPs in the state as promised by the director general of NEMA.
In his response, the Borno state Deputy Governor, Alhaji Zannah Umar Mustapha, said 22 local government areas were displaced by Boko Haram in the state and that over a million IDPs are living in Maiduguri, the state capital alone.
According to Zannah, though the military has liberated 97 percent of the communities taken over by insurgents in Borno, it will take time for the government to fumigate and diffuse the landmines before the displaced inhabitants can go back to their various communities.
Appealing to the Federal Government and NEMA to take over the feeding of the IDPs, the deputy governor said in the last five years, the Federal Government has given only N200 million to the state Government whereas Adamawa state with few local government areas affected by the insurgency was given a whopping N4 billion.
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