Boko Haram: FG receives committee’s report to eradicate poverty from North-East

THE Federal Government, on Monday, received the report of the committee set-up to rebuild the North-East region, following the socio economic havoc wrecked by the Boko Haram insurgency.

Receiving the report from the acting Chairman of the committee and the Director, Investment and Consultancy Services Department, Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Dr (Mrs) Zainab Hammanga in Abuja, the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu said the report, which has estimated over N6 billion as a total cost for reconstructing and eradicating poverty from the zone, regretted that the Boko Haram insurgency took devastating tolls of varied dimensions on Nigerians, especially the people of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States.

He noted that the report was a very critical assignment to Nigeria in general and North-East in particular, lamenting that the country has paid a very big price due to the number of lives and properties destroyed by the insurgents.

According to him, we lost many of our people, many were displaced so many women, young women, many children became orphans, many became refugees in neigbouring countries like Chad, Naija and Cameroun. We are very happy through the gallant Armed Forces and the leadership provided by President Muhammadu Buhari, today the insurgency has been reasonably defeated.

“We cannot allow any part of our country to have problem if there is solution because the nation is just like a human body if any part is aching you, it will affect other parts. We in the ministry have the capacity and we are operating under suitable environment, so we will use this capacity within the ministry to help transfer skills to our people in the affected areas and it will be of tremendous benefit to both the region and the nation”, he added.

Earlier in her presentation, Dr (Mrs) Hammanga said the rebuilding efforts would be channeled towards small and medium enterprises in conjunction with private sectors while special committee would handle the blue print on the rebuilding of the region.

Hammanga, who disclosed that the committee would deploy technology to the zone, also mentioned agro-allied, education, manufacturing, power, construction, health, transportation, as well as water resources and solid minerals sectors as part of the rebuilding programme.

She added that the estimated cost of products and services to be provided through SME initiative as part of intervention was put at over N6 billion.