Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
A non governmental organisation (NGO), the Peace, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Initiative (PRRI) has donated N2.5 million, food items worth N5 million and improved seeds and crops worth N2.5 million to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) that recently returned to their various communities to help kick start their lives again.
According to a statement issued in Abuja by its Executive Secretary, Dr. Sam Ode, the gesture was meant to assist the returning IDPs whose communities have been liberated from the Boko Haram terrorists, who had unleashed mayhem on the people of North-east for years.
He added that the team is moving to some pilot areas that approached the NGO with some special requests to provide them with seeds, food items and cash support to aid their people resettlement.
Ode stressed that the task of helping the IDPs to return back to their various communities became necessary after the NGO took an assessment tour of selected communities in the North-east that were once occupied by Boko Haram terrorists.
He however confirmed that the Nigerian military have carried out a total recovery of the area and it now suitable for human habitation, though requiring urgent government efforts for meaningful life to take off.
Speaking on behalf of Borno State government, the Executive Chairman of SEMA, Satomi Ahmed thanked the PPRI team for the gesture, while also calling on other well-meaning Nigerians and spirited individuals to support the IDPs to return back to their homes.
He commended the NGO for its timely, transparent and laudable Initiatives to give back to the IDPs in a manner that has not been witnessed since the inception of interventions for the people.
However, the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Garbai El-kanemi maintained that the Nigerian authorities have helped to push out members of Boko Haram out of his domain in less than one year of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
He added that the insurgents in the first place are non indigenes of Borno State, who came to earn a living as a result of the magnanimous and hospitable nature of his subjects with a history of about 1300 years.
El-Kanemi therefore promised to provide the enabling environment for the organisation to to enable it carry out her humanitarian activities which according to him is the first of its kind since his domain was visited by the ugly activities of Boko Haram.
