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| Gov Buni |
Yobe State governor Mai Mala
Buni has identified education, agriculture and roads as immediate sectors for
intervention by the North-East Development Commission(NEDC) in the state.
Gov. Buni disclosed this today Friday
when the chairman of the commission, Maj. Gen. Paul Tarfa and other members of
the commission paid him a familiarization visit in Damaturu, Yobe State capital.
According to the governor,
everyone in the region is looking up to the commission as it gathers momentum
to deliver its mandate to the people.
He noted that, the huge task of
rebuilding the region and the state in particular from the ruins of Boko Haram
requires enormous resources and strategic collaboration with the commission
towards achieving the desired results.
Yobe under him, he disclosed
has already declared a state of emergency on education, convene an education
summit and an agriculture retreat all in an effort to change the negative
narratives of underdevelopment in the state.
His words: “… resettlement and
reconstruction are some of the hardest fallouts of the Boko Haram crisis. They
require huge resources and sustained effort to deliver. They are not things
that the State Government can do alone. Resettlement and reconstruction, to
rebuild lives and restore hope, necessarily require all-hands-on-deck.
“This is why the North-East Development
Commission could not have come at a better time. At this time of great need, we
need you to come in forcefully; and we need you right now.
“Let me now outline some of the
key areas where we need you to push the effort to restore hope among our people
and make life a little easier for them.
“As you may be aware, we have
declared a state of emergency in education and we are now at the stage of
implementing the recommendations of a technical committee on basic and
secondary education. Our objective of setting up the committee, following the
education summit we convened recently, was to have a broad range of practical
and actionable ideas to revitalise primary and secondary education and provide
access to the best education possible for our children.
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| Maj. Gen. Paul Tarfa rtd, delivering his speech during visit to Yobe Gov. |
“I have already approved the
establishment of three STEM education schools and a teacher training center to
both improve science education and the capacity of our teachers to become good
mentors and good role models for their students. I have also approved the
recruitment of additional qualified teaching personnel so that all of our
schools have the teachers they need in all the subjects they offer.
“But we need the support of the
North-East Development Commission to get our education right. We need you to
support capacity building for our teachers and principals. We need you to rebuild
our classrooms that have been destroyed by Boko Haram and provide our students
with access to new learning facilities. We need to make rapid progress in
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics so that our students can have
the confidence of becoming tomorrow’s leaders in scientific breakthroughs. We know
they have the talent to become coders and even inventors. We just need to show
them that it is possible. And we would need your support to that.
“Mr Chairman may also be aware
that we had convened a four-day agricultural retreat which ended only yesterday
to generate the opinions of experts and stakeholders to revive agriculture in
the state, incentivize farming and make Yobe the food basket of the nation that
it can be.
“Today, more than 70 percent of
our population engages in agriculture. But most of it remains subsistent. With
poor access to modern farming tools, poor access to improved seeds and almost
zero access to credit facilities, our farmers have remained unable to upgrade
their farming practices or compete with others in making agriculture the cash
cow that it is.
“It is therefore our hope that
the North-East Development Commission would partner with us to accelerate
agricultural mechanisation in the state and provide the support that our
farmers so desperately need.
“Mr Chairman and members of the
Commission would also agree with me that both education and agriculture are
sectors with the highest returns for job creation.
“It is precisely for this
reason that are we keen to integrate our youth empowerment effort with the
possibilities in education and agriculture so that we provide the training and
the skills necessary to make youths self-reliant.
“The Yobe State Government
reckons that youth empowerment is the necessary next step to take as we
consolidate on the improved security situation in the state so that we are to
channel the energies of our youths into productive uses. The North-East
Development can help the process by working with us to provide skills training
for our youths in key trades and crafts so that, going forward, these youths can
set up their own businesses, make some money and help their own families.
“And lastly, but urgently too, we
would like the Commission to help build two key roads in the state to help the
process of reconstruction and accelerate the return to full economic activity.
These are the Gujba-Ngalda road and the Nguru-Kumaganam-Mayori road.
“The Gujba-Ngalda axis is an
area that had suffered so much disruption from Boko Haram’s ruthless insurgent
activities. People in the area have now returned to their homes. But the
difficult terrain has made a return to normalcy so difficult, as people cannot
go to and return from their farms and markets easily. Building the Gujba-Ngalda
road would surely make things a lot easier for the people and make it even
easier for them to rebuild their lives,” Gov. Buni said.
Gov. Buni also appreciated the Gen. Mohammadu Buhari led Federal Government for the establishment of the commission for the region.
Earlier in his remarks, the
Chairman of the NEDC, Maj. Gen. Paul Tarfa Rtd told the Governor that his team
was in the state to familiarise with him and begin the process of executing
their mandate for the people of the region.
The NEDC boss regretted the
huge losses that the people of the region have incurred as a result of the Boko
Haram crisis which he described as the worse in history of mankind.
He later demanded for a piece
of land and a temporary office accommodation to help the commission establish a
liaison office in Yobe for its take off.
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