OVER 40 per cent of teachers in the North-East lost their lives as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency, the Managing Director of the North-East Development Commission (NEDC) Mohammed Alkali, has revealed.
Alkali disclosed this on Thursday at the 50th session of the State House Briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said teachers in the zone are the primary target of the terrorists.
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The Commission also disclosed that Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North-East are unwilling to return to their ancestral homes.
“The scarcest product now, not only in Nigeria but elsewhere, is teachers. In the North-East, over 40-50 per cent of teachers have either been killed or something has happened to them because of the insurgency and this so called Boko Haram and they’re the primary target of those people.
“Most of them have been killed or something must have happened to them. So, we need more teachers in the region,” he said.
According to him, the Commission has prioritised the training of teachers in the zone.
He also disclosed that the Commission has created an Education Endowment Fund (EEF) to build human capital in the zone through scholarships, short-term capacity building and improvement of basic education, among others.
Alkali added that the Federal Government had completed the construction of 1,000 housing units as part of its resettlement efforts for millions of inhabitants displaced by the 13-year insurgency in the North-East geo-political zone.
He said the houses had been handed over to the Borno State Government for distribution to various households.
According to him, the Federal Government plans to build 500 housing units in five other affected states each, at a combined cost of N17.5 billion.
Alkali further noted that lack of quality education is responsible for the growing insurgency in the geo-political zone.
He stressed that to execute its mandate and Masterplan in the next 10 years, the NEDC required at least N31.05 trillion.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: umustapha@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M