T.Y. Danjuma Heads FG’s Fresh Initiative on North-East
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that all federal government initiatives for the NorthEast will be coordinated by retired General Theophilus Y. Danjuma.
Professor Osinbajo said this yesterday in Abuja in his opening address at a summit organized by Northern Reawakening Forum with the theme “Building a Safe, Secure and Economically Inclusive Northern Nigeria”.
He expressed the commitment of Federal Government to take action on all issues that affect the life of Nigerians in any part of the country.
He explained that Buhari’s administration had been active in interventions in the North-East owing to the crisis there.
He stressed the need for a shortterm strategy to alleviate hardship as well as a long-term plan to build the infrastructure that most closely affected the economic life of the most vulnerable citizens.
He said, “We have been active in interventions in the North East, due to the immediacy of the crisis in that particular axis of our nation. But the problems of illiteracy, disease and poverty are exacerbated by the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East. A close detailed analysis and plans for the North-East have been drawn up in collaboration with the affected states and some development organizations.
“We have been working and streamlining, in particular government interventions through the Presidential Initiative on the North East, Victims Support Group, and several other initiatives. Now all of the Federal Government initiatives are under the chairmanship of General TY Danjuma. We hope that streamlining these efforts in this way will help to ensure immediate delivery of succour to many of the problems that currently afflict the North East.”
He said the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari believed that creating social safety nets for the poorest must be the beginning of any efforts aimed at addressing their concerns.
He stressed that Conditional Cash Transfer, School Meal Programs, Universal Health Care Insurance and other social protection programmes were critical to the way the government intended to address the concerns of the poor.
Vice President Osinbajo particularly said that in the 19 northern states of Nigeria, human development indices were by far poorer than the rest of the country.
According to him, “while the northern states occupy about 70 per cent of the landmass of the country, they also have the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the country, the lowest rate of child enrolment in schools, highest number of unemployed young people, highest levels of poverty and faces the challenge of inter-ethic and inter-religious conflict including the Boko Haram terrorism”.
He said the Northern Nigerian Economic Summit of 2012 was the first forum to draw attention to some of the depressing statistics about the condition of the region.
He said the conclusions of that summit indicated that the north had some of the largest numbers of the out-of-school children in the world.
Osinbajo, however, expressed optimism that “dismal as some of these conditions might be, it does not have to define our future or that of our children”.
He said, “the planners of the summit did not shy away from the tough issues ranging from the girlchild education to the Alma-Jiri system, from women empowerment to the economic viability of states, from an immediate marshal planlike attempt at addressing the areas in conflict to how to create cooperation between states and stakeholders.”
Osinbajo called on Nigerian leaders to aspire to win the people’s hearts rather than enrich themselves with state resources.
He also decried what he called the derailment from the foundations set by the founding fathers which, he said, had led to the challenges confronting the country.
He added: “Nigeria is a nation of 170 million people, the sixth largest producer of oil, over a hundred varieties of solid minerals and precious metals, hundreds of thousands of hectares of arable land, the largest economy in Africa; yet desperately poor.”
Presenting his paper, the governor of Borno state and the chairman of Northern States Governors’ Forum, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, stressed the need for the North to make deliberate efforts aimed at addressing its challenges.
Governor Shettima also underscored the need for the northern governors to pursue the implementation of a comprehensive marshal plan and development agenda in order to revive the fortune of the north.
Earlier, the chairman of the Forum, Hon. Mohammed Umara Kumalia, noted that discussions at the summit would help in the rehabilitation and rebuilding of the north.
He disclosed that among other issues, the 2013 World Bank report had shown that the north had the highest poverty index in Nigeria which, he said, the Forum sought to redress.
The summit was attended by governors of Bauchi, Kebbi and Benue states. Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Alhaji Moddibo Umar, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman and Dr Oby Ezekwesili were also there.