Insurgency: FG needs N2.2trn to reconstruct North East

Going by the report of the Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative (PCNI), N2.2 trillion would be required in the short term for the reconstruction of the region ravaged by Boko Haram insurgency.

The region, comprising Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe states, respectively, according to the North East Nigeria Recovery and Peace Building Assessment Team, recorded about $9 billion in economic loss between 2011 and 2015, in addition to over 20,000 lives lost to the series of attacks.

The total expenditure through government intervention is estimated at N15,813,920,437.26, according to Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Borno State in the memorandum on the North East Development Commission bill submitted to the House Committee on IDPs chaired by Sani Zorro.

According to the report from Tracking Matrix, developed jointly by IOM and National Emergency Management, 92 percent of the IDPs in Nigeria are embedded in communities while about 8 percent are spread across 21 camps, 68 percent are children, with 60,000 births so far recorded in the various camps.

In the bid to address the challenges facing the region, Speaker Yakubu Dogara, who declared the public hearing open, emphasised the need to develop a legal framework to remedy the grave social dislocation and progressive socio-economic devastation of the affected states.

“Our aspirations for the establishment of the commission are not farfetched, even though there is poverty across Nigeria, in comparative terms; the North East suffers an exceptional poverty amid little opportunities to push itself out of the problem.

“Our industries have almost collapsed, schools are dilapidated, destroyed or non-existent in most communities, roads are death traps and largely inaccessible and farming completely in virtual comatose due to insurgency. Besides, the region groans under the pangs of desertification, ethno-religious crisis, climatic factors, predatory diseases, among others,” Dogara said.

Dogara, who received a submission by the wife of the President, Aisha Buhari on the occasion, noted that the North East suffered an exceptional poverty amid little opportunities to push itself out of the unfortunate socio-economic quagmire.

The speaker further said that in the education sector, the North East had the least number of universities, about 11 when compared with the other two regions in the North.

According to him, North West had 16 universities, North Central had about 22 including the FCT.

He also said the area of health with specific reference to tertiary health facilities like teaching hospitals, North East had two, North West three and North Central four. The region lags behind in all major indices of human development with the highest incidence of illiteracy in Nigeria, he said.

“Statistics from National Bureau of Statistics as at 2008 show that more than 65 percent of the people living in the North East are ” absolutely poor” with less than $1 income per day.

“It is important to note that these statistics predate the consequences of insurgency in the last eight years and current economic down turn,’’ he said.

Dogara further stated that, it was estimated that there were 2.2 million IDPs in various parts of the country, with the North East accounting for close to 2 million.

Speaking earlier, Sani Zorro, chairman, House Committee on IDPs, Refugees and Initiatives, argued that the humanitarian assistance deployed to the people across the region aimed at achieving recovery and stabilisation among IDPs have not been well-targeted, because so far, all assistance including food and non-food items, and shelter have only reached IDPs living in designated camps and sites.

“But as is well known, this figure represents 8 percent of IDPs, while 92 percent are assimilated with host communities living with families and relations, in market stalls, uncompleted buildings, faith-based worship houses, and have not been reached, over the years, either by local, state, or federal authorities,” he said.

The chairman said the earlier N2.2 trillion cost of reconstruction of the North-East region of the country put forward by elder statesman, T. Y Danjuma was in the short term only, while calling for the urgent rescue of the country’s National Commission for Refugees, and Migrants.

Zorro said the agency needed to deliver on the President Mohammadu Buhari’s recovery and development agenda, especially at times of emergency such as now.