P
ProfRem
Guest
Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno on Wednesday said all Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in the state would be shut in 2017.
Shettima announced this at a plenary on Mitigating the Impact of Crisis and Conflict at the 22nd Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja.
He said the IDPs camps were fraught with lots of challenges.
He added that “my target is May 29, 2017; I want to close down all the camps in Maiduguri in order to restore the dignity of our people.
“We will not stampede or intimidate people to go back to terrains not well secured. The local government headquarters would put up security architecture that would secure those places.
“The IDPs we have right now in Maiduguri, Biu and other places are full of challenges – issues of early child marriages, child prostitution, drug abuse and gangsterism.
“If we allow these things to continue, the challenges will become unmanageable in a few years to come.”
The governor, who said that inequality and extreme poverty were responsible for the insurgency in the state, added that “you cannot divorce insurgency from poverty. We must evolve holistic programmes to create jobs.
“We have come up with programmes of addressing the grievances of the people and bridging the gap in trust between the leadership and the people.”
Shettima then reiterated the state government’s determination to turn the crisis to opportunities to build a better state.
He noted that one of the issues the state government had addressed was education,
saying “education is a great treasure and the administration is determined to change the face
of Borno.
Shettima announced this at a plenary on Mitigating the Impact of Crisis and Conflict at the 22nd Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja.
He said the IDPs camps were fraught with lots of challenges.
He added that “my target is May 29, 2017; I want to close down all the camps in Maiduguri in order to restore the dignity of our people.
“We will not stampede or intimidate people to go back to terrains not well secured. The local government headquarters would put up security architecture that would secure those places.
“The IDPs we have right now in Maiduguri, Biu and other places are full of challenges – issues of early child marriages, child prostitution, drug abuse and gangsterism.
“If we allow these things to continue, the challenges will become unmanageable in a few years to come.”
The governor, who said that inequality and extreme poverty were responsible for the insurgency in the state, added that “you cannot divorce insurgency from poverty. We must evolve holistic programmes to create jobs.
“We have come up with programmes of addressing the grievances of the people and bridging the gap in trust between the leadership and the people.”
Shettima then reiterated the state government’s determination to turn the crisis to opportunities to build a better state.
He noted that one of the issues the state government had addressed was education,
saying “education is a great treasure and the administration is determined to change the face
of Borno.