NAN-H-61
Amenities
Abuja, Jan. 24, 2017(NAN) The Chairman, Senate Committee on States and Local Government Administration, Sen. Abdullahi Gumel, has urged the Federal Government to pay priority attention to needs of border communities to stem insecurity.
The lawmaker, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday, lamented the harsh conditions in most border communities due to lack of basic amenities.
He said that it was imperative to take their wellbeing seriously to help in checking potential security threats along the borders.
He called for adequate funding of the Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA), saying that funding of the intervention agency, which catered for the needs of border residents, would help to develop the areas.
According to him, the importance of developing border communities is that if the communities cross to other countries to get health and education services “and those countries want to attack Nigeria, they cannot alert us’’.
“This is because they are enjoying their own facilities. So, their allegiance is more to the other countries than to us.
“We want to change that notion so that communities will get amenities so that they don’t have to cross over to other countries.
“Nigeria is a big brother in Africa. We want to accommodate people from other countries to come and enjoy facilities in our country rather than we going to their countries to enjoy facilities,’’ Gumel said.
He pointed out development of those communities, which were currently located in 21 states, would go a long way in checking daunting security threats to the country.
He pledged the committee’s commitment to ensuring adequate oversights in the border communities in order to alert government on the needs of the people.
“There are about 21 states that have borders and about 106 local governments have borders.
“By the definition of border community, any community that is within the perimeter of 15 kilometres of the international boundary has become border community.
“Anything above 15 kilometres does not fall within the purview of border community.
“So like I said, 21 states are divided into six geopolitical zones and in our oversight of the bailout, any project that we have, like what we did in Cross River, we can take out time and oversight those projects.
“ I was among the eight members of the House of Representatives in the 4th Assembly that sponsored the bill establishing the border community development agency I come from a border community.
“Eight of us who happen to come from border communities know the challenges and that is why we sponsored that bill and the BCDA was established.
“As God will have it, now I am in the senate and that agency is under my committee; so, I am imploring the Federal Government to fund that agency. (NAN)
CJM/OPI/OPI
Edited by Olisa Ifeajika