FG, development partners mull trust fund for North East

The Federal Government and development partners have held talks on the security challenges in the North Eastern region of the country and are now considering the possible setting up of a multi donor – trust fund to address the challenges of insurgency in that region.

Abubakar Sulaiman, national planning minister, who called the meeting said it was organised to examine the current situation in the North East and fashion out ways to re-strategise and coordinate the various efforts at achieving a better result.

The meeting further discussed how to reach more of the internally displaced persons in the region and also agreed that the implementation of the multi donor-trust funds should come in a short and long term strategy to effectively and adequately address the devastating effects of the insurgency.

Other agencies of government responsible for disaster management which also attended the meeting include the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons. The State Security Service was also in attendance at the meeting.

Meanwhile, the number of Nigerians so far displaced by flood and insurgency has reached 868,000, figures from the National Emergency Management Agency indicate.

The Federal Government through NEMA is providing medical consumables, ambulances, clean water and provision of boreholes for internally displaced persons in various camps.

“The current insurgency perpetuated by the Boko Haram sect in the North Eastern part of the country is causing serious untold hardship to millions of people.

“Insurgency seems to be recurring in this part of the country but the scope, scale and impact of the current intrusion as well as the dexterity of the perpetrators is out of proportion to any previous one,” the planning minister lamented.

Sulaiman described the effects of the insurgency in the North East as quite pervasive and devastating with the local economy paralysed, lives and property wasted in an unimaginable scale.
He explained that the Presidential Initiative for the North East (PINE) seeks to develop a framework to coalesce efforts of the Federal Government to revitalise the economy of the North East of Nigeria and leverage on the activities of the states and local governments as well as the development partners.
According to him, the initiative is expected to come up with a sort of marshal plan that can then be used to mobilise support for targeted intervention funds.