Governor Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe State has said about N20 billion was needed to reconstruct the destroyed homes of Boko Haram victims before they could go home.
He, however, expressed happiness that the state was now peaceful, stressing that the two local government areas previously occupied by insurgents had since been liberated. This was even as Governor Solomon Lalung of Plateau State, yesterday, regretted the death of a traditional ruler who was murdered in cold blood. Geidam revealed that many of the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, who were hitherto quartered in different camps, had returned home.
The governor, who spoke with State House correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, yesterday, said he had briefed the President on the developments.
He said: “In Yobe State, we experienced insurgency for about two or three years. There were times when the Boko Haram terrorists occupied two of our local government areas of Gulani and Gujiba before they were liberated. As I am talking to you, we have more than 3000 IDPs in our camp. Gov Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe State “All of them, except these 3000, have returned to their homes. That is why I am here to advise Mr President on how best these people should be resettled. “Because they need a kind of rehabilitation of their destroyed homes by Boko Haram, some need outright reconstruction of their homes, especially those which were completely destroyed by the Boko Haram terrorists.
So, I came here to give him first hand information of things on ground there. “I briefed him of how much we were able to do to resettle those who have gone back home and then what the federal government wants the remaining ones to do, so that they will go back and settle fully in their homes and resume their normal business activities.
“By our estimates, actually if the Federal Government spends anything from 10 to N20 billion, the whole area which was destroyed by Boko Haram will be reconstructed and people will go back to their homes and resume their normal lives.”
Where will such huge sum come from? Oil-bearing states of course, non of which receives half of that in allocation monthly. When northerners are not over bloating Local Government Areas for multiple Federal Allocation, they are presenting lame excuses to defraud others. How many Niger Deltans have you rehabilitated? When you pay Boko Haram to facilitate your election victories and they later bear them venomous fangs at you, you are now asking us to pay for your nuisance. Of course, its yours for the asking. This public announcement is just due process.
ReplyDeleteYou people are investing on the north while neglecting Niger Delta, just imagine this kind of change?
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