According to the Minister of NPC, Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman, the meeting organised at the instance of the commission, sought to among other things, “examine the current situation in the North-east region and fashion out ways to re-strategise and coordinate the various efforts aimed at achieving a better result and also to reach more of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the region.”
He said: “The activities in the North-eastern part of the country are causing serious untold hardship to millions of people. Insurgency seems to be recurring in this part of the country but the scope, scale and impact of the current intrusion as well as the dexterity of the perpetrators is out of proportion to any previous one. The current insurgency, perpetuated by the Boko Haram sect was initially traced to the neighbourhood effects of the Arab Spring in North Africa.”
Represented by the acting Secretary to the commission, Mr. Bassey Akpayung, Sulaiman noted that the effects of insurgency in the North –east was quite pervasive and devastating with the local economy paralysed while lives and property had been wasted in an unimaginable scale.
The minister added that the Presidential Initiative for the North-east (PINE), sought to develop a framework to coalesce efforts of the federal government to revitalise the economy of the region’s and leverage on the activities of the states and local governments as well as the development partners.
The initiative was expected to come up with a sort of marshall plan that could be used to mobilise support for targeted intervention funds.
He therefore, called for deepening of interventions in the region and also reiterated the need to work in a better collaborative manner with all the stakeholders in the intervention activities.
A representative of the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Alhasan Nuhu, in a presentation at the meeting, revealed that 868,000 thousand people had been displaced in both by flood and insurgency.
He said the federal government through MEMA was providing medical consumables, ambulances, clean water and provision of boreholes for IDPs in various camps.
Also, UN representative, Jean Gull said UNCIEF had opened offices in Maiduguri, Borno State “because Borno is the epicentre of insurgency.”
She added that support was being children to tackle malnourishment which she described as a challenge in the camps, as well as working to stamp out polio and Cholera in Nigeria.
She said support was also been provided to government in the safe school initiative and also called for collaboration with host communities on social security.
According to a statement by Head of Information, NPC, Salisu Haiba, the meeting had recommended that the implementation of the multi donor-trust funds should be in a short and long term strategy to effectively and adequately address the devastating effects of the insurgency,
