FG Approves N56 Billion for Development of Insurgency-Ravaged Areas

Internally displaced persons

The Federal Government has released N56 billion toward rehabilitating victims and places ravaged by insurgency in the North-Eastern part of the country.

Alhaji Muhammed Sani-Sidi, the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), announced this at the second “Safe School Initiative Leaders’’ meeting in Tehran, Iran.

This is contained in a statement, signed by Ibrahim Farinloye, the Public Information Officer of NEMA, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lagos.

The statement quoted Sani-Sidi as saying that the government had released N53 billion for the Victims Support Fund (VSF) and N3 billion for the Presidential Initiative in the North-East (PINE)

According him, the federal government is committed to safeguarding students, teachers and schools’ infrastructure in the country.

“The federal government has demonstrated this with the release of N3 billion for the Presidential Initiative in the North-East (PINE) and N53 billion for the Victims Support Fund (VSF).

“The funds are meant to address the various emerging issues to mitigate the effects of the fading Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria,’’ the director-general was quoted as saying.

In his presentation at the meeting titled an “Overview of Safe School Initiative (SSI)’’, Sani-Sidi stated that the Safe School Initiative in Nigeria had received $50 million as support from Nigerian government, foreign governments and International Donor Agencies.

He highlighted the major causes of threats to safe schooling and school infrastructure as flood, rain/wind storm and community strifes.

“The catastrophic Boko Haram Insurgency in the North-East has become the single most significant threat to schooling and school infrastructure. NEMA put the figure of displacement of people within Nigeria at two million, while about 57,743 displaced people were temporarily sheltered in Niger Republic, Cameroun and Chad,’’ he said.

Sani-Sidi also revealed that 254 schools were destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgency, while government was making efforts to assist 2069 students affected by the destruction.

He said that the students had been transferred from the high risk areas to 43 Federal Unity Schools (FUCs) in the North-Central, North-West and part of North-East.

The director-general acknowledged the contribution of the German Government, especially on the student transfer component of Safe School Initiative.

He also acknowledged that, “United Nations Children and Education Funds (UNICEF), in collaboration with Federal and State Ministries of Education, are supporting education in IDPs camps through various interventions.

“Such intervention include `School-in-a-bag’, `40 schools in a box’, and distribution of 35, 800 school bags with learning materials. The United States of America’ International Development contributions include enrollment of 54,000 IDPs in Non-Formal Learning Centres and training of 394 teachers to manage the centres,” Sani-Sidi stated.

He pledged the commitment of the federal government toward continued implementation of the “Safe School Initiative’’