The North East Development Commission, NEDC, says it plans to construct 10,000 houses for Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in Borno.
Mohammed Alkali, NEDC Managing Director disclosed this at the official ground breaking ceremony of the President Muhammadu Buhari Special Intervention Project in Ngom, Mafa Local Government Area of the state on Friday.
Mr Alkali said that the project would help address housing needs of the IDPs in the state.
He observed that about six per cent of houses in the state had been destroyed due to Boko Haram insurgency, adding that the total value of property destruction by the insurgents was about 9.6 billion dollars.
Mr Alkali said that the Federal Government has approved a national housing programme where the state would get another 8,800 houses.
He, however, observed that the houses would not be enough for the state and urged the government to look into the possibility of increasing the state’s slot to 20,000.
“I am making a passionate appeal to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to see that the state gets additional 20,000 houses alongside the ones we are having today.
“The housing project will be executed as quickly as possible to facilitate the return of those displaced,” Mr Alkali said.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, said the special project was a pointer to President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment towards rebuilding of the North East.
Farouq said that 100 houses would be built in Ngon, while the rest 900 would be spread across nine other LGAs in the state.
Governor Babagana Zulum, lauded Buhari for the project which he said would help in facilitating the return of many IDPs back to their ancestral home.
Mr Zulum, who noted that the state has over 1.5 million IDPs, said his administration was committed to ensuring that all IDP camps in Maiduguri Metropolis and Jere LGA were closed on or before May 2021.
While expressing the gratitude of the people of the state to the federal government, Zulum urged NEDC to do more in the area of infrastructure, particularly roads, schools, and water supply distribution network.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the NEDC in Maiduguri had inaugurated a 30-bed capacity Isolation Centre in one of the IDPs camp in Maiduguri.
It also donated 120 operational vehicles to the Nigerian Army and paramilitary organisations in the North East.
Similarly, ambulances and medical equipment were presented to University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital; Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital, Bauchi and the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Maiduguri among others.
NAN
