Michael Olugbode in Marduguri
The National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) has said the federal government is willing to do everything necessary to rehabilitate the people affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-east of the country and renovate all the public buildings destroyed since the start of the crisis over four years ago.
Speaking on Sunday during the presentation of relief materials to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Chibok in the troubled Borno State, the North-east Zonal Coordinator of NEMA, Alhaji Mohammed Kanar, said the federal government will stop at nothing to see smiles returning to the faces of people of the area.
He also gave a commitment to the people that the agency would provide boreholes for them in order to ease the perennial shortage of potable water.
Kanar, who had earlier led a team on Friday to Kalaa in Hong local government in Adamawa State, to equally deliver relief materials to IDPs in the area, said the federal government was only waiting for normalcy to return to the North-east before the commencement of the massive rehabilitation and reconstruction plans.
During his visit to Chibok, he was accompanied by experts from the Safe School Initiative, who conducted the needs assessment on schools destroyed by insurgents in the town and other places affected.
Representatives of the IDPs including Dr. Danladi and Pastor Enoch, who responded on behalf of others, expressed their satisfaction over the gesture by NEMA. They said NEMA under the leadership of its Director-General, Alhaji Muhammad Sani Sidi, has been very helpful in alleviating their suffering and providing them succour.
At Kalaa, the Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the area, Pastor Tatami Elkana and the Chairman of the area’s Muslim council, Abubakar Kunliyi, while receiving the relief items on behalf of the IDPs, expressed their appreciation to President Goodluck Jonathan for providing the relief to the community.