100,000 killed, 2.1m displaced by B/Haram - Shettima

Over 100,000 persons died, 2.1 million others displaced and property worth $9billion destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgency as at December 2016, Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima said.

He said a total of 956,453 private houses representing 30% of the total number of houses in Borno were destroyed across the 27 Local Government Areas in the State.

Shettima was speaking in Abuja yesterday when he delivered a keynote lecture at the 2017 Murtala Muhammed Memorial Lecture organised by the Murtala Muhammed Foundation to commemorate 41 year anniversary of the assassination of the late head of state.

He said “A total of 665 municipal buildings comprising state ministries, LGA buildings, prisons, police stations and power distribution offices were destroyed in Borno. 5,335 classrooms and other school buildings were destroyed in 512 primary schools, 38 secondary schools and two tertiary institutions in the State.

“201 health centres, mostly primary healthcare clinics, dispensaries and some General Hospitals were all destroyed. The insurgents also destroyed 726 power substations and distribution lines just like they destroyed 1,630 water sources including motorized boreholes, hand pumps, solar powered boreholes and facilities for piped water schemes.

“Across 16 local government areas of the State, the insurgents bombed parks, gardens, orchards, game reserves, Green Wall projects and poisoned ponds, Rivers, Lakes and stole over 500,000 cattle. All these were in addition to setting ablaze markets, large scale farms and hundreds of trucks that evacuated farm produce for export to neighbouring countries.’’

He blamed escalation of the insurgency on his predecessor in office, former governor Ali Modu Sheriff. Shettima said Sheriff mismanaged the Boko Haram crisis by blatantly ignoring the entire incident in 2009 when the deadly sect first had violent confrontation with security forces in Maiduguri.

He also said former President Goodluck Jonathan initially believed in the conspiracy theory that Boko Haram was a northern agenda to destabilise his administration and did not take necessary action until by 2013.