Musdapha Ilo, Maiduguri

The Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, has announced that he is dedicating N100 million state fund to the education of the Chibok girls and has also assigned a Kaduna-based Inter-Faith Mediation Centre the task of counselling the 57 escapees and re-enrolling them in good schools outside Borno.

The centre is to work medical experts to ensure that the 57 girls are rehabilitated and are given quality education.

Shettima said his administration was determined to do everything within its power to erase the trauma the girls were experiencing and that he is optimistic about the safe return of the remaining 219 still held hostage.

The remaining 219 girls are expected to also benefit from this gesture.

“Our heart goes to all the rescued girls and to those still in captive of the so called Boko Haram. We are willing to do everything within our power to give them quality education, including those still in captive. We are willing to rehabilitate all of them to bring them out of their trauma,” the governor said.

Leaders of the mediation centre, James Wuye and Mohammed Ashafa said it was established as an aftermath of the sectarian crisis which rocked the north-central state of Kaduna a few years ago.

According to them, the centre is backed by the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, and is ready to give counselling to the girls through a psycho-therapy approach.

“We are here not to reinvent what has been done. We have been to other African nations like Chad, Central Africa Republic, Sudan among others but we have the urged to replicate same in our country,” Wuye said.

The state team assigned to give local support and data to the mediation centre include the commissioner of health, Salma Anas Kolo, heads of state-own health institutions and experts from other federal institutions in the state among others.