‘FG not doing enough on North-East humanitarian crisis’
Senators and members of the House of Representatives from Borno State yesterday said the federal government is not doing enough on the humanitarian crisis in the NorthEast following the Boko Haram insurgency.
Addressing newsmen at the National Assembly on behalf of the lawmakers, Senator Ali Ndume(APC, Borno) said out of the N12bn allocated to the Presidential Committee for North-east Initiative (PCNI) in 2016, only 75 percent was released. He said the amount was less than 10 percent of the $449m contributed by donor countries and international agencies for the humanitarian crisis in the region.
Ndume, a former Senate Leader, said in this year’s budget proposal, only N45bn was allocated to the region. “This is grossly inadequate to address the emergency humanitarian crisis we are faced with compared to the $1.0bn international agencies and donor countries are trying to raise,” he said.
“PCNI, NEMA, BOSG, SEMA, VSF, and Dangote Foundation are the visible agencies on ground but international NGOs are more visible and active,” he said, adding that the Borno State government was overwhelmed with the humanitarian crisis facing the state.
On the impact of the crisis, Ndume said 14.8m people were affected, the cost of destruction was put at over $9bn and 7m people are in need of humanitarian assistance.
“1.8m people are in IDP camps, out of which more than 80% live in host communities and the rest in camps, and 2.5m children are said to be malnourished, majority of them are in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, 1.3m children are without access to education and over 65,000 children are orphaned due to the crisis.
“Over 500 Schools have been destroyed in Borno alone, 100 churches and mosques were destroyed, over 100,000 people lost their lives as a result of the crisis, about 250 health centers were destroyed, about 800 municipal buildings comprising police stations, secretariats, prisons and other public buildings among others were destroyed and 800,000 houses were destroyed,” he said.
To this effect, the lawmakers called for the increase of the allocation to PCNI from N45 Billion to at least N100 Billion in this year’s budget. “Other state governments, individuals, religious organizations, NGOs should help the affected states. The media should also continue to galvanize support for the affected region,” he said.