SGF leads Presidential team to commiserate with Borno victims

Mr Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, on Saturday led a Presidential delegation on a sympathy ‎visit to the people of Borno at the instance of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the visit was in response to a suicide attack at a mosque in Polo-High Court, a new community layout in Maiduguri, on Friday.

NAN also reports that the suicide attack left five persons dead and scores severely injured.

Lawal said that President ‎Buhari had asked the team to visit Borno to meet with victims of the attacks and commiserate with them over the unfortunate and wicked incident.

He reassured them that the Federal Government was fully committed to ending the Boko Haram insurgency by December.

He said that the President also called on the residents not to relent in reporting any strange movements to the appropriate authorities to prevent planned attacks.

The SGF said that President Buhari was solidly behind Gov. Kashim Shettima and acknowledged the Governor's firm commitments to complement the efforts of the Federal Government in the fight against insurgency.

He added that the President also commended Shettima's compassion towards the welfare of Borno citizens and as such, the FG will always be ready to support the Government of the State whenever such help was required.

NAN reports that the delegation included the National Secretary of the APC, Mala Buni, the President's Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu among others.

In his response, Gov. Shettima thanked the President for the visit, saying that despite the attacks, whoever assumed insurgents were winning the war was far from the truth.

Shettima recalled that there had been serious changes in the ongoing counter insurgency since President Buhari assumed the mantle of leadership.

He said that insurgents were confined to villages in the outskirts due to consistent pressure from the military.

Shettima said that the military had presence in other flash points such as Marte in northern part of the State.

The governor also expressed high optimism that insurgency would be brought to an end from indicators available to him.

``At some points, Boko Haram overran 20 out of our 27 Local Government Areas in Borno and they overran four Local Government Areas in Adamawa and two in Yobe.

``For us in Borno, we are combining whatever we are doing with the second phase, which are reconstruction, rehabilitation and re-settlement of victims.

``Our plan is to close all Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps by May 29, 2016 after rebuilding all communities with all sons and daughters of Borno back to their homes.

"We don't want to allow camps to become homes like we have seen with a camp in Kenya, which has been in existence for over 20 years,’’ he said.

According to him, we are sure that Mr President will give us the support we need in the reconstruction works so that we can rebuild Borno.

``We will do everything humanly possible to rebuild every affected community, ‘Insha Allah,’ we have already started with Kaga in northern Borno under the first phase.