Our visiting Saraki-led Senate needs to take note, so as not to complicate the situation in the north and further endanger the lives of the people.
Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu said, “your quick return and your welfare is a major concern of government and we are all working very hard to make you comfortable”.
There is no “quick return.” We understand that this visit from the comfortable Abuja where the roads are re-paved every year despite not being worn, is quite different for our Senators, but we beg them to speak little or not at all.
We citizens have been containing the situation in the north for the past 5 years and though we appreciate the magnanimity of the Saraki-led visit, we would not like them to complicate the situation for us, being used to Abuja’s high class lifestyle and highly paid bureaucracy.
The displaced persons’ homes have been burned down. Their markets burned. Their water supplies damaged. As governor Shettima confessed to journalists, his and his predecessor’s government did not take care of anywhere outside the Maiduguri capital, and that situation where villagers lived in barely humane conditions is now 10 xs worse.
There are mines on the roads. Boko Haram with its mission to destroy farming in the northeast, lived up to their task by strewing mines also in the farms. There is no soon return to this till the efficient presidency completes its work on these issues.
More aware IDPs Support Project via donations of us commoners has purchased a bulldozer to clear out areas where we are rehabilitating displaced persons temporarily. These are the type of complex measures at a time when a return home may be deadly and unreasonable.
Terrorists still run around those areas. While the army may soon dismiss the insurgency, there will still be danger for a while in those decades-long abandoned and now over terrorized parts of Nigeria. Can we simply promise them they will return home soon? I think this is insensitive and aloof. We appreciate and understand the temptation to say nice words. But sometimes naive words are deadly.
We thank our Senators for their visit and the donation of N10 million. We urge them to return to Abuja and focus on how to cut the N150 billion NASS budget to the reasonable N15 billion, 10%, so there can be enough money to rehabilitate Borno and fairness and justice can be re-established to prevent the inclination to terror in the future.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah; http://ENDS.ng [Every Nigerian Do Something] Email: [email protected] Twitter: @EveryNigerian
