The North East Development Commission (NEDC) has executed 647 projects in the education, health, water supply, infrastructural facilities and agricultural sectors of northeast. The completed projects were under the Commission’s Rapid Response Intervention (RRI) scheme to ease the devastating effects of over a decade long Boko Haram insurgency. While launching the scheme and graduation of 166 ICT trainees Tuesday in Maiduguri, NEDC’s Managing Director, Mohammed Alkali disclosed that projects were executed in the 112 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the region at N6 billion. The over a decade long insurgency has claimed 36,000 lives with property worth $9.2 billion (about N3.42 trillion) in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.
According to him, when preliminary assessment of projects were carried out, 647 projects were rationalized across the six states of the region. “The RRI projects in Borno state, have been completed with today’s handing over of 40,000 classroom furniture to the state government for distribution in 27 councils,” he said. Besides, he added that construction of clinics in Kwaya/Kusar and Shani LGAs are currently ongoing, as well as the drilling of twin middle aquifer boreholes in Konduga, Gubio, Magumeri and Nganzai councils. He said that the boreholes have a capacity of 10,000 litres each in the four LGAs. On irrigation projects, he said that the Gulayi irrigation scheme near Damasak in Mobbar council is about to be completed. He noted that most of the 647 projects are at various stages of completion in the six states affected by insurgency.
Other projects completed include the construction of 10,000 houses for Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDPs) returnees in liberated Borno communities. He said the 1,000 houses at Ngowom in Mafa council, is about to be completed for handing over to the state government; while food and non-food items worth N4 billion, were distributed to various IDP camps and host communities. “We shall continue to do so; whenever the humanitarian needs arise from any of the insurgency affected states,” he said.
