The Executive Director, Victims Support Fund (VSF), Dr Sunday Ochoche, has said that rehabilitation of schools and other infrastructure destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgents had commenced in the North-East.
The Executive Director said this while fielding questions at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja on Sunday.
Ochoche disclosed that educational materials, books and all relevant things required for learning had been procured, in an attempt to rehabilitate the educational sector of the area.
He expressed regret that Boko Haram insurgents killed many teachers, destroyed many schools, and rendered schooling non-existent in the area, saying that historically the area was one of the most educationally backward part of Nigeria.
According to him, activities of insurgents had complicated the condition of education further in the region.
“This is why one of the first things that VSF set out to do was to begin very quickly to address the issue of educational deficiencies and limitations in the area.
‘‘We started this with the procurement of educational materials, books and all the relevant things that they required.
‘‘We flagged off in 2015 with 30,000 school pupils on this project in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe where all things were provided with all the books they required and the materials for school that they required.
‘‘In 2016/2017 session we added another 50,000 pupils to this project.
‘‘In 2017, come September, we will be adding many more schools and pupils to this project.
“The students and the schools that have been taken on board in this agenda are required to be provided with facilities by Victim Support Fund,” he said.
The executive director said that they chose to address a few of the immediate challenges and also to focus more on the medium to long-term process for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the North-East.
He said that VSF has commenced the physical construction of schools and local government secretariats, general hospital, Police barrack, boreholes and Police Stations in Dikwa Local Government Area of Borno.
He also explained that similar reconstruction project was ongoing in Bama, adding that seven schools and a maternity clinics in Bama would be inaugurated in the next two weeks.
Ochoche added that the reconstruction of affected public buildings and borehole in Buniyadi would commence in two weeks’ time.
‘‘In Yobe state, in another one or two weeks, we will be flagging-off the construction of Buniyadi and we will be reconstructing the General Hospital in Buniyadi first.
‘‘All the schools in Buniyadi will be reconstructed except the Federal Government College in Buniyadi, which is such a huge project that is about the only school we are not starting with at the moment.
‘‘We have also taken on six local governments around the Sambisa area, we are talking about Madagali, Michika, Askirauba, Chibok, Damboa, Kawo local governments.
‘‘We are going to start the reconstruction of 24 schools in these six local governments, four schools in each of these local governments; we are also focusing on education there too,” he said.
On the issue of the victims’ health, Ochoche said that VSF has 16 hospitals in its medical rehabilitation programme, adding that two more would be added in due course.
‘‘There are now 16 hospitals in the VSF medical programme, we gave a grant of N20 million to each of the hospitals for them to determine their immediate needs and provide them.
‘‘We have entered an into Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the hospitals where every victim of Boko Haram injury or wound that is brought to these hospitals would be given maximum free medical attention.
‘‘We now have 16 hospitals that are benefitting from this programme and they include; two hospitals in Kano, two hospitals in Plateau, two hospitals in Taraba, and the National Hospital in Abuja,
‘‘We have also added the Military Hospital, Maiduguri and the Air Force Medical Centre in Dalori Camp in Maiduguri. We are going to add two more hospitals in another two weeks.
‘‘We will be adding the General Hospital in Michika and the General Hospital in Mubi because we realise that the Madagali axis has been suffering intermittent attacks and each time these attacks take place there are no medical facilities in Madagali to support victims.’’
He said that an ambulance and some equipment would be provided for the Michika and Mubi Hospitals.
He added that a borehole would be provided for the General Hospital in Mubi to address the problem of shortage of water supply there. (NAN)
UU/SSI/MOL/AFA
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