How we intend to bring peace to North-East – Tumsah
Daily Trust on Sunday,
Tijjani Tumsah is the vice chairman of the Presidential Committee on North- East Initiative (PCNI). In this interview with
he explained efforts by the committee at rebuilding the warravaged region.
Your committee has existed for over a year, what are your achievements?
You have to deal with the first issue, which is security. On that front, the gallant Nigerian armed forces, in conjunction with the civilian JTF, have been able to recover areas that were hitherto in the hands of Boko Haram. In that way, a lot more things were discovered. A lot of people were freed. The issues of health and resettling people, as well as, rehabilitating their communities, have risen. The PCNI, on its part, has been able to intervene with food supplies where they were gaps, in conjunction with the National Emergency Agency (NEMA) and other international non-governmental organisation that are into that field. We have bought a substantial amount of foodstuff, which were delivered to the affected areas to treat immediate issues of humanitarian crisis.
Now, we are moving into the economic development aspect. We are now making progress in terms of recovering from humanitarian crisis. This is the nexus between humanitarian and economic development.
Was your committee involved in the process of establishing the North-East Development Commission (NEDC)?
I must congratulate the National Assembly and Mr President for establishing the commission. This will go a long way in ameliorating what we are trying to do; that is recovering the North-East. If well funded, the commission would achieve its goals.
Is it possible for both organisations to exist together?
The intention of the NEDC is to harmonise what we are doing at the PCNI. The National Assembly is actively working on harmonising the two bodies. The PCNI was established for a period of three years while the NEDC is established for 10 years. Harmonisation will make it more focused.
How is the PCNI assisting people to rebuild their lives from the ashes?
The resettlement part of it is what we are working on right now. We have a variety of people returning. First, there is the issue of Nigerian refugees that are in Chad, Cameroun and Niger. We are working with a tripartite agreement that was signed between Nigerian and Cameroonian governments and the other nations’ refugee commissions. The essence of this is to take preparatory steps, which is what we are actively involved in.
The PCNI intends to resettle all the refugees that would be brought back, in terms of giving them assistance to rebuild their homes and resume livelihood, especially in agriculture and small businesses.
We are actively working with the Nigeria Human Right and Refugee Commission, as well as the NEMA to make sure that their return is done in a safe, secure and meaningful manner.
In Dikwa and Bama, for instance, civil authorities have been recovered. All the local government secretariats, schoolsnm and hospitals have been recovered and rebuilt by the PCNI, Victim Support Fund and other partners.
One of the basic roles of the PCNI is to coordinate all the ongoing interventions in the North-East. What we have done in that respect is to first of all get everybody that is involved and has a plan for the North-East to come to a table and discuss issues relating to the region, particularly in humanitarian, economic development, resettlement and the likes. Right now, we have a monthly coordination meeting, where everybody shares what they have been doing, what they are going to do in the next few years or months, or as the case may be.
Some organisations have been accused of diverting items meant for victims, while some officials are allegedly involved in shady deals. What’s your specific role in such situations?
If you noticed, since the inception of the PCNI those cases have reduced tremendously. That has been done effectively because we have meetings with security officials on a monthly basis. Any act of fraud or diversion is treated with dispatch, particularly issues that have to do with food or gender violence, or other acts that are not in consonance with good citizenship. The PCNI makes it a point of duty to target those issues and deal with them according to law.
What has been your relationship with governors of the affected states?
We have had a good working relationship with those governors. As a matter of fact, we do the monthly coordination meeting together. We also align with the priorities of the states as it relates with the Buhari plan and how our interventions are going on. For instance, with the Borno State Government, we have been able to do quite a lot of things in terms of recovering public institutions in a number local government areas.
We are continuously in discussion with the affected governors, particularly those of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, in terms of their needs and priorities. We also discuss with other partners to see if those needs could be met. For instance, we are in touch with the oil and gas sector in Nigeria, and we have had commitments from a substantial number of them. Some have committed to building schools. Some have committed to building health care facilities. A lot of them are also providing economic support programmes in these states. These will be more evident as the activities commence.
Is there any special educational scheme to assist affected children?
We have a robust plan to re-establish those schools. Unfortunately, a lot of teachers have been killed. Most of them have moved because of safety concerns. The PCNI has created a plan to recruit and retain teachers to resume academic activities. One of the ongoing programmes is from the Victim Support Fund, which has invested heavily in educational materials.
There are over 50 schools under construction in a variety of areas in the North-East, but they are mostly in Borno right now. We are intent on getting teachers to commence their jobs as we recover more areas.
The biggest challenge is how to have people return and resume academic activities. We are actively participating in those areas that are safe for now. We have had discussions with partners willing to invest in the rehabilitation of schools.
What about scholarship?
For scholarship, the Safe School Initiative is a programme that has been ongoing for a number of years. It has over 2,000 students from the North-East who are placed in 43 Federal Government colleges across the North. The PCNI is paying for their scholarship. We monitor the students consistently, and they are doing well.
The Petroleum Technology Development Fund has also provided scholarships to students of the North-East. Over 360 scholarships was provided in the spirit of the partnership I was talking to you about, for PhD, undergraduate and postgraduate studies for the region. In addition to other agencies that wish to participate in rebuilding schools, the Pension Commission has indicated interest in rebuilding classrooms. The PPRA has also indicated interest in furnishing the classrooms we are constructing right now.
How much do you think the committee and other organisations require to rebuild the North-East?
I told you earlier that the NorthEast requires over N2trillion to be rebuilt. Obviously, there are funding gaps, but the international community and other donor agencies, including private sector operators within Nigeria, are contributing quite a bit in terms of doing projects in the region. We have also approached other partners to come and fill in those gaps.
It is going to happen over a long period of time. It takes a short time to destroy but a long time to rebuild. We anticipate that it would take 10 years to rebuild the NorthEast, and the required funds would be continuously sought for.
We are calling on all and sundry to contribute their widow’s mites. A particular area of concern is the number of orphans that need support. In the last meeting on insurgency, $900million was raised. But you must understand that this fund was raised by international partners and they spent it on their operations directly, without reference to what we do. Also, the guiding principle is the Buhari plan, and we insist that they spend within that framework.
Are they doing that?
To some degree, they are. We are now getting an idea of how their spending is going on and how we can monitor that and begin to tailor it towards programmes we think are very important to us.
Do you have any specific plan for widows and orphans?
We have plans for orphans and widows. Widows that are engaged in entrepreneurial activities will get cash to start. We are giving them cash in conjunction with some of our partners to set up small businesses, and so on.
We also have a variety of programmes for orphans because the number is huge. So you have to come up with various programmes that are culturally suitable. For instance, the Office of the Vice President has a project in Maiduguri, which will be commissioned soon. It is a schoolhome programme that will engage thousands of orphans. Other programmes of smaller nature are going on in the states for orphans.
The Victim Support Fund is also placing orphans in various homes on stipends that would take care of them and their households.
What are you doing for internally displaced persons?
We intend to engage them in agriculture, particularly animal husbandry. This plan is coming up very well and we intend to pursue it vigorously.
Do you have programmes for Boko Haram militants who surrender arms and embrace peace?
We have started a few programmes such as Transitional Justice and Rehabilitation to counter violence and extremism as much as we can. We also do a lot of peace building in communities that were ravaged by insurgency.
There are skills acquisition centres to accommodate Boko Haram members who return to embrace peace. We have had town hall meetings on peace building initiative in Borno, Yobe and Mambilla to bring people together in relation to what is on ground and what happened in the past. Going forward, we intend to do that in areas that have witnessed insurgency.
The primary issue is how to reintegrate the people who were seen as Boko Haram but now want to return. A special arrangement has to be made before that is done. Also, we have to go through special stages for that to happen.
For people to live together again, there must be sustainable peace. Are you thinking of initiating a programme similar to the Rwandan model, where there will be reconciliation and peace?
As I said earlier, there are programmes to suit each community in the North-East. We have had town hall meetings where these issues were discussed openly and frankly. There are models we have to create in terms of transition justice. We have been talking to the Federal Ministry of Justice and other partners in peace and conflict resolution.
How will this transitional justice work?
It is a model where the communities are asked to forgive people who offended or hurt them. It is similar to the Gacaca Court, but we are not sure whether it would work in Nigeria because it is still fresh.
A lot of conversations are still going on to get a suitable model for the affected areas.