Amina’s UN office will be most valuable to Borno – Shettima

Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima, at the UN headquarters in New York for the swearing in of former Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed as Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, said her new office would be most valuable to his state.

Shettima proceeded to New York for the Tuesday event after attending a donor humanitarian conference on the Northeast Nigeria and the Lake Chad which took place in Oslo, Norway.

Shettima, who spoke to newsmen after attending Amina Mohammed’s swearing in, said he honoured her because she had been of much support to his government over the course of the Boko Haram insurgency and he would need her support more in her new capacity at the UN.

A statement from his spokesman, Isa Umar Gusau, quoted the governor as saying, “We all know the humanitarian crisis in the Northeast Nigeria; the Lake Chad region and the role being kindly played by agencies of the UN. Borno happens to unfortunately be the epicentre of the Boko Haram violence and hence, we suffer the most of the crisis. If any Nigerian governor needs to identify with a Nigerian Deputy Secretary General of UN in moments like this, I should be the one.”

Shettima said Amina had always identified with Borno State, explaining, “While she served as Minister in the Nigerian Federal Executive Council, she showed the strongest empathy towards us in Borno State. She was the minister that so far visited Chibok with us over the schoolgirls abduction. When our insurgent-humanitarian crisis began acutely in April 2016, I went to her office without prior appointment and she gave me strategic advice and very important connections and she worked underground to mobilize support towards supporting us and her mobilization lingers till date.”