- Inaugurates centre for Boko Haram bomb victims
Nigeria’s Northeast Development Commission (NEDC) has handed over 1,000 units of two-bedroom bungalows to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Borno State.
The Commission has also built and handed over a state-of-the-art burn centre for the treatment of Boko Haram bomb victims at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.
The houses constructed at Ngwom, Mafa Local Government Area of Borno State were handed over to Borno State Government on Thursday by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Faruq Mohammed at the village which is located about 20km from Maiduguri, the state capital.
Managing Director of the Northeast Development Commission, Mohammed Alkali, had earlier at the opening ceremony of the event at the Multi-purpose Hall of the Government House Maiduguri announced that the project was part of the 10,000 housing programme approved by the Federal Government in 2019 under the Special Presidential Intervention in Borno State (SPIB) as a result of insurgency.
The NEDC boss explained that the 1,000 housing units comprised four blocks of 2-bedroom bungalows with veranda and courtyard built in a cluster arrangement.
He noted that Ngwom, which was once an agrarian settlement, has now been transformed into a town with modern houses and social amenities accompanied with “solar-powered street lights, four industrial solar-powered boreholes, planted over 3,000 economic trees, and provision made for school, markets, police station and motor-park.
“We are delivering a town at Ngwom as against its earlier village status. Each block sits on 400 square meters with a perimeter fence and ample space for other home activities,” the NEDC boss said.
The MD also announced that all beneficiaries of the houses are to be handed over food items ranging from 2,000 bags of rice, 2,000 cartons of spaghetti, and 2,000 gallons of vegetable oil.
Other non-food items to be benefitted by the IDPs he said, including 5,000 pieces of blankets, 5,000 mattresses, 5,000 mats, 4,000 pieces of children wear, 4,000 women wrappers, 4,000 pieces of mosquito nets, 5,000 pairs of slippers, 2,000 men brocade, 1,000 cartons of antiseptic soaps.
The NEDC as part of its support for the displaced people, especially women announced the distribution of Economic Empowerment Tools to women for resettlement in the community.