NAN-H-17
North-East
By Lizzy Okoji and Taiye Edeni
Abuja, July 9, 2017 (NAN) The Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCNI) says it will take a minimum of ten years for appreciable progress to be made in efforts at rebuilding the North-East..
The Vice-chairman of the committee, Alhaji Tijjani Tumsah, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He said that the crises in the North-East were gruesome and had led to the loss of thousands of lives and destruction of property worth more than 9 billion dollars.
Cue in audio (Tumsah)
“ The issues in the North-East are long term; in my opinion, it will take a minimum of ten years before appreciable progress is made and people are able to return to normalcy.
“The three-year time frame given to the committee is in the first instance.
“We have engaged the private sector on a variety of issues including fund raising.
“The private sector has indicated a lot of interest to provide quite a bit of resources for the engagement.
“The physical nature of the intervention will begin to become more obvious before the year runs out.
“For now we are set, we have the framework for intervention and strategy, we have all the partners on these same page and now there will be less acrimony and it would become obvious to the whole Nigerians.
“This plan which is the strategic framework for implementation for the recovery of the North East is the Buhari Plan.
“The document synthesizes all these studies and distills them into programmes that are implementable to the situation in the North East. ’’
- Cue out audio
Tumsah said that in less than a year, the committee was able to record huge success in meeting its three “R’’ mandate of reconstructing, rehabilitating and rebuilding the North-East.
He said although a lot of people would recount the success of rebuilding the region in terms of physical structures, a lot more needed to be done before putting up structures.
The vice chairman said that to carry out its task effectively, PCNI designed and adopted the “Buhari Plan’’, a blueprint to guide its intervention for success.
Tumsah said that the plan contained a holistic approach to addressing the root causes of insurgency.
According to him, the plan can be used as a global module for post-conflict and economic recovery development.
He stated that the plan is a five-year time framework divided into three components for immediate implementation.
The components are: the short term (immediate), intermediate term, and long term.
He explained that the Buhari plan was further distilled with the immediate and intermediate components to be executed under its high impact programme.
Tumsah said that the areas of priority under the plan includes; a boost in humanitarian assistance, improved health care, resumption and strengthening of agricultural production, education transformation by reconstructing schools, recruiting and training teachers.
He said that under the Buhari Plan, over 21,000 projects have been listed for implementation by MDAs, States Government, development partners, International and Local NGOs
Tumsah said that amidst scarce resources for the enormous task, the Committee will judiciously use the scarce resources available to ensure a better and safer North-east.
NAN reports that the PCNI was inaugurated by President Muhammad Buhari on Oct. 26, 2016 with a three-year timeframe to recover and rebuild a better and safer North East.
Gen. Theoplilius Danjuma (rtd.) was appointed to serve as chairman of the committee.
Some other members of the committees are the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI),
Others are the six North-East States, Office of the National security Adviser, relevants MDAs and UN agencies, International Organisations and NGO, local NGOs, the Victims Support Fund (VSF) amongst others. (NAN)
LIZ/TY/YEE
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Edited by Emmanuel Yashim