The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has called on all stakeholders in the Northeast to deliberately and constantly make efforts to correct past errors that created the Boko Haram insurgency and or hindered development in the region.
The Managing Director, NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman, made the appealed during a visit and presentation of relief materials for displaced persons to Governor Ibrahim Gaidam in Damaturu Thursday.
Bala-Usman said that the members of Boko Haram were not born, but created, “So, new efforts must be ‘deliberately and constantly’ made to ensure that we correct whatever error of the past, and chart a new course for the future of Yobe State and indeed that of the Northeast to come out strong from this catastrophe.”
She said about year ago, the post-insurgency Recovery and Peace-building Assessment, an Intervention Programme involving the World Bank, European Union and the UN, carried out across the six Northeastern states, estimated the total value of damage and destruction done by the insurgents to $5.9billion (almost N2 trillion).
Usman, who was represented by the General Manager, Human Resource of the NPA, Alhaji Yahya Gana Bukar, said the food items are meant to lessen the humanitarian burden of the state.
Earlier, Governor Ibrahim Gaidam, who was also represented by his deputy, Abubakar D. Aliyu, said the intervention came when it’s most needed by the affected people.
The items donated by the NPA include: 750 bags of rice, 400 bags of beans, 350 bags of semovita, 160 bags of corn, 1,400 pieces of wrapper, 5,000 blankets, cooking oil, mats and rechargeable lantern among others for IDPs in Pompomari, Abari, Fuwuri, Ngabaruwa, Gujba, Damaturu, Kukareta, Gulani and Plot 13.
