Borno’s fight to put havoc of insurgency behind

The relative return of peace in Borno State has encouraged the state government to speed up projects that were otherwise halted or slowed down due to activities by the Boko Haram insurgents. Governor of the state, Kashim Shettima made this known recently when the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and a team […]

The relative return of peace in Borno State has encouraged the state government to speed up projects that were otherwise halted or slowed down due to activities by the Boko Haram insurgents.

Governor of the state, Kashim Shettima made this known recently when the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and a team of journalists visited the state for the special Town Hall Meeting and also inspection of some projects in the state.

The journalists were led on a guided tour with the state Commissioner for Information, Mohammed Bulama, to some selected projects undertaken by Governor Kashim Shettima, “to provide an environment that is conducive for its traumatized citizens”.

These projects expected to be completed before the year runs out are spread across the various sectors including education, health, infrastructures amongst others.

First stop on the tour was to the State University, which comprises of 5 faculties including education, Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts and Management science.

Commissioner for Higher and Special Education, Borno state, Ahmed Usman Jaha said the Borno State University, was originally built as an Informative Institute, and has been granted license by the Nigerian Universities commission (NUC).

The university is set to admit students for the takeoff of its programmes by the end of this quarter, according to the commissioner.

Jaha noted that a contract of N3.4 billion was awarded to build a library, faculties, lecture theatres and staff quarters and the state has been assured by the contractors that it would be completed in four months.

He said the institution would take off with a total of 1000 students, 500 for remedial science and the remaining 500 for remedial arts.

The commissioner also said the remedial programmes will run for about seven months before regular admission to degree programmes begins.

Also the commissioner for information, Mohammed Bulama, said the state government is also building about 30 mega schools across the state with boarding facilities for children orphaned by the Boko Haram insurgency. Each senatorial zone would have atleast 2 or 3 of those schools to cater for the over 52,000 orphans and 55,000 widows in the state.

The governor during an interactive session said the project was necessary to avoid stigmatization of the orphans and prepare them for the future by having them occupied to avoid breeding more delinquent youths.

“We are building 34 mega schools targeting between 1200 to 2400 students principally orphaned by the insurgents. We also want to avoid cases of entitlement where those with education feel they are entitled than others, so we would bring in all the children from the environment. I believe education is the greatest tool for change. If we do not take these orphans by educating them and giving them a good home, they will not be able to take care of us 10 to 15 years down the line,” Shettima said.

Journalists were also driven to the site for the solar factory, which they learnt is a solar module which will be used to generate power for the rural communities. This will help them in pumping water for their boreholes, electricity for clinics, schools and markets.

Adviser to Governor Shettima, Ibrahim Ali, who was a former Minister of Petroleum, said the factory would have a capacity to produce 40 megawatts per year and the machine once laid will be 70 percent robotic and 30 percent manual. 

“This is a high-tech solar factory with a capacity to produce 40 megawatts per year considering Maiduguri is now getting about 10 to15 megawatt and our rural areas is very large, the governors approach is to lay enough facilities to win the war” he said.

“We are going to mount solar models most of them will have no batteries, they  work from 7am till 5pm in the evening, that will be enough water for our nomadic and rural population portable clean water for other residents of the state” he added.

On Agricultural sector, the state commissioner for Agriculture, Mohammed Dili said there has been an increase in the number of farmers in the state since the displacement of the insurgents from the most of the local government areas in the state.

He also said that the state has registered 18,000 farmers to cultivate rice on 18,000 hectares of land in preparation for this year’s planting season.

The commissioner who showed journalists the newly acquired farming equipment including tractors, mills, threshers, planters and harvesters for rice cultivation by the state government, said at the time the equipment were bought the Naira was still strong.

“There is equipment for sesame seeds; you know Borno is a hub for sesame seeds. 7% of sesame seeds exported out of the country is from this state so; we have 1600 of these planters. These are mild crop planters, we plant maize, groundnut, rice, wheat. We also have more than 1000 tractors” he said.

Dili said the state has devised a means of distributing equipment to the farmers by having them join cooperative societies in their respective communities.

“In this this state we have areas specialized in different kinds of crops like in the northern part we specialize in groundnut production, southern part in maize and corn production and all these we procure these materials specifically for these types of crops” he said.

“Of the 100 combined harvesters available in this country we have more than 50 of them brand new that we have not started using and this was meant for the Chad basin area where we have 67000 hectares of land for wheat and rice production but unfortunately that is the area that is now being occupied by BH. It is still not very peaceful for us to go there” he added.

The commissioner further said the state has one of the largest poultry investments and also intends to use the groundnut cake and the soya beans it produces for the purpose of our poultry feeding.

“We have made our people into cooperative societies, we give the tractors , we give you planters and then you come in a cooperative society of 20, 25 or so and then we give you the processing machines. And at the end of the day, we purchase the products and by-products from the cooperative societies” he said.

“These equipment if put to good use will boost the IGR of the state. Although the intent of this procurement is not to project in terms of naira and kobo, we have a community that is completely poor even before the dislocation of BH, we want to get the occupied, employed, empowered,” he said.

The commissioner also said the state about 18 factories, tomato processing plant worth more than N40billion, 600 rice mills of different sizes from the ones that are being controlled by individuals to ones that are controlled by the communities in different sizes.

The state has also built a new hospital for women and children, named after former first Lady Maryam Abacha located along Dikwa Road, Maiduguri.

The hospital has about 250 beds and is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment.

Also at the Borno State Specialist Hospital a post-graduate training takes place where the training of consultants in obstetrics and gynecology is observed.

The Chief Medical Director, Dr. Salisu Aliyu Kwayabura, said there are now 44 ultra sound scans for the 38 general hospitals in the state. Kwayabura said the intervention has resolved to improve maternal and children health delivery.

Some of the latest ultra-scan machines it acquired include the E10, E990 C, FODI, CT Scan, MRI, digital radiography and Echo Scan.

The CMD said until the procurement of the equipment, Borno had one of the worst indices of maternal mortality of 1,000 deaths per 1,500 lives in the country.

Still on the tour, commissioner for Information showed the team Ali Mongunu Teachers Village which when completed should accommodate 400 houses of between 2 to 3 bedroom flats for teachers.

Bulama also said that the state government had built over 3,000 houses named the Zanna Mustapha Garden to be allocated to indigenes of the state.