The federal government has assured that it will assist victims of insurgency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states to recover from their losses and start a new life.
Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, gave the assurance when she visited Maiduguri with a team of experts sent by the former British Prime Minister and United Nations Special Envoy on Special Education, Gordon Brown, on Wednesday.
Okonjo-Iweala said the federal government has earmarked $100 for the Save School Initiative programme which would see school facilities that have been destroyed, restored and even upgraded.
She said she was happy to find pupils in school taking their exams even though most schools in Borno have been closed down in view of the security challenge in the state and assured that the federal government would collaborate with the affected states to see that schools are reopened.
Okonjo – Iweala explained that the initiative would be a wholistic programme to include community participation and schools.
The minister and her team distributed relief materials to over 4,000 people displaced through Boko Haram attacks at a camp for internally displaced persons at Yerwa Practice Primary School within the Maiduguri metropolis.
Representatives of Gordon Brown, Robert Quick and Dala Masson, said the former UK Prime Minister was determined to make a contribution toward ensuring people in the area return to normal life.
An elated governor Kashim Shettima, thanked the minister and the Gordon Brown team for the visit, saying it had further proved the unity and togetherness in Nigeria to address the common enemies of people including poverty, unemployment and insecurity.
Shettima said he was impressed by the minister’s disposition for accepting the invitation to join the Gordon Brown team in spite of the fact that it came on Tuesday, a day before the trip.
The governments and residents of the three affected states had often accused the federal government of doing little or nothing to assist them get back on their feet since the insurgency started five years ago.