The Managing Director of North East Development Commission (NEDC), Mohammed Alkali has said that fresh attacks on communities have stifled the reconstructions and development process in Borno. The over a decade long Boko Haram insurgency has claimed 36,000 lives with property worth $9.2 billion (about N3.42 trillion) in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states. The recently attacked communities in the state included Damasak, Dikwa, Magumeri, Mafa and Gambouru, a border community with Cameroon. Alkali disclosed this Thursday in Maiduguri shortly after a closed door meeting with Governor Babagana Zulum over last Tuesday’s attack on Damasak, a border community with Niger Republic. While lamenting the incessant attacks, he said: “The ongoing recent attacks on communities in the state, have slowed down our reconstruction and rehabilitation processes this year. “Whenever there are attacks and destruction of lives and property like what recently happened in the border community of Damasak, the commission has to go back to the drawing board. “These recurrent attacks are slowing down what we are doing, particularly in areas of reconstruction and other developments projects in the Northeast region.” He said a lot of human and capital resources were sunk for humanitarian support, including the distribution of relief materials to 1.7 million IDP returnees in Borno. On commission’s commitment work with six affected frontline states, he said: “We’re already committed to support farmers with agricultural inputs. “They will be provided with these inputs to restore their means of livelihoods destroyed in the liberated communities.” Continuing, he added: “Humanitarian interventions are part of our job to provide necessary support where needed. “We’re going to do it not only to Damasak where we have the latest attack; but to the entire region affected by insurgency and other terrorists’ activities.”
