Maiduguri – Mr Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to
the Government of the Federation, on Saturday
led a Presidential delegation on a sympathy visit
to the people of Borno at the instance of
President Muhammadu Buhari.
The visit was in response to a suicide attack at a
mosque in Polo-High Court, a new community
layout in Maiduguri, on Friday.
Also the suicide attack left five persons dead
and scores severely injured.
Lawal said that President Buhari had asked the
team to visit Borno to meet with victims of the
attacks and commiserate with them over the
unfortunate and wicked incident.
He reassured them that the Federal Government
was fully committed to ending the Boko Haram
insurgency by December.
Lawal said that the President was calling on
residents to increase their involvement in
community policing so as to identify strangers in
their midst.
He said that the President also called on the
residents not to relent in reporting any strange
movements to the appropriate authorities to
prevent planned attacks.
The SGF said that President Buhari was solidly
behind Gov. Kashim Shettima and acknowledged
the Governor’s firm commitments to complement
the efforts of the Federal Government in the
fight against insurgency.
He added that the President also commended
Shettima’s compassion towards the welfare of
Borno citizens and as such, the FG will always
be ready to support the Government of the State
whenever such help was required.
The delegation included the National Secretary
of the APC, Mala Buni, the President’s Senior
Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam
Garba Shehu among others.
In his response, Gov. Shettima thanked the
President for the visit, saying that despite the
attacks, whoever assumed insurgents were
winning the war was far from the truth.
Shettima recalled that there had been serious
changes in the ongoing counter insurgency since
President Buhari assumed the mantle of
leadership.
He said that insurgents were confined to villages
in the outskirts due to consistent pressure from
the military.
Shettima said that the military had presence in
other flash points such as Marte in northern part
of the State.
The governor also expressed high optimism that
insurgency would be brought to an end from
indicators available to him.
“At some points, Boko Haram overran 20 out of
our 27 Local Government Areas in Borno and
they overran four Local Government Areas in
Adamawa and two in Yobe.
“For us in Borno, we are combining whatever we
are doing with the second phase, which are
reconstruction, rehabilitation and re-settlement of
victims.
“Our plan is to close all Internally Displaced
Persons (IDPs) camps by May 29, 2016 after
rebuilding all communities with all sons and
daughters of Borno back to their homes.
“We don’t want to allow camps to become
homes like we have seen with a camp in Kenya,
which has been in existence for over 20 years,’’
he said.
According to him, we are sure that Mr President
will give us the support we need in the
reconstruction works so that we can rebuild
Borno.
“We will do everything humanly possible to
rebuild every affected community, ‘Insha Allah,’
we have already started with Kaga in northern
Borno under the first phase.