The Northern States Governors Forum has called on the Federal Government to release the N10 billion it promised the committee it set up to fight desertification in 11 states of the country.
The decision of the governors to step into the matter followed the release of only N300 million out of the N10 billion pledge almost one year after the promise was made.
The Chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum and Governor of Niger State, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, dropped the hint in Minna, Niger State when he received the Chairman and members of the Nigeria Frontier Action Initiative on the Environment, who paid him a courtesy call at the Government House.
Aliyu decried the delay in the release of the money to the committee, adding that governors in the region will push for the issue of desertification plaguing 11 states in the North to be among topic for discussion during the centenary celebration of the country.
H said: “The issue of desertification has gone beyond partisanship.
“All hands must be on deck to solve this problem once and for all.”
Aliyu also urged his colleagues to mount a vigorous campaign on the issue of desertification to the extent that people in and outside affected areas will be aware of the problem and what government is doing to arrest it.
He disclosed that the last meeting of the governors discussed exhaustively major problems facing the North, especially the issue of desertification and resolved that majority of the matters raised should be properly looked into and presented at the forthcoming constitutional conference.
He said: “We have agreed to send our best hands to the conference.
“They are to argue in favour of issues confronting our region, including the issue of desertification and the revenue sharing formula.”
Earlier, the Chairman of the committee, Alhaji Mukhtar Lugga, had told the governor that the Central Bank of Nigeria report said that 53 million people in the North are poor, which also placed 10 states in the region as the poorest in the country.
Lugga said that 34.5 per cent of the land mass in the ‘frontline states’ have been lost to desertification, resulting in migration of people from the rural areas to the urban centres.
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