Managing Director, North East Development Commission (NEDC), Mohammed Alkali, has disclosed that about 50% of teachers in the North East region of the country have been killed by Boko Haram.
Managing Director, North East Development Commission (NEDC), Mohammed Alkali, has disclosed that about 50% of teachers in the North East region of the country have been killed by Boko Haram.
Alkali who spoke at the 50th session of the State House Briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said teachers in the zone are primary target of the terrorists.
He also said that the commission has prioritised the training of teachers in the region because their ranks had been substantially depleted.
Alkali said;
“The scarcest product now, not only in Nigeria but elsewhere, is teachers. In the North-East, over 40-50 percent of teachers have either been killed or something has happened to them because tag of the insurgency is the Boko Haram and teachers are the instruments of this so called Boko Haram and they’re the primary target of those people.
“Most of them have been killed or something must have happened to them. So, we need more teachers in the region.”
He also revealed that the federal government had completed the construction of 1,000 housing units as part of its resettlement efforts for millions of inhabitants displaced by the 13-year insurgency in the North East geo-political zone.
According to him, houses have been handed over to the Borno State Government who distributed it to various households.
The houses were built in Ngwom, Borno, with plans to build 500 housing units in five other affected states each, costing N17.5bn.
Alkali who stated that lack of a robust education system fuelled the insurgency in the zone, noted that the commission had created an Education Endowment Fund with a seed capital of N6bn with plans to dedicate 10 per cent of its annual allocation to the Fund.
He also said they would be executing the North East Stabilisation and Development Master Plan in the next 10 years, and the NEDC require at least N31.05tn.
Daily Trust also reported that the NEDC Executive Director, Humanitarian Affairs, Musa Yashi, said some of the internally displaced persons in the North East were not willing to return to their ancestral homes.