Rebuilding of North East: Matters arising, by Jonathan Ishaku

I find very few news items as heart-warming as the information coming in that the Federal Government has procured a World Bank loan of $2.1 billion to rebuild the North Eastern region devastated by the activities of insurgents. This is a right move that will not only go a long way to ameliorate the squalid condition of the war-ruined region but it will pull the rug under the feet of the insurgency itself.

By rebuilding the society, the Government will deny the insurgents a support base and sanctuary among the population since insurgency feeds on popular disenchantment. The provision of social welfare and other public goods and services will go a long way to elicit public support and thus enhance security within the region.

The North East is the home of my youth. I grew up in the beautiful city of Maiduguri. After Shehu Garbai, the ruler of the old Borno Empire was brought from war-ravished Kukawa  to Maiduguri by the British colonialists in 1907 he called his new settlement Herwa which means “peace” in Kanuri language. Yerwa, the other name for Maiduguri, which is popular among the natives, is a corruption derived from Herwa. Since its foundation Maiduguri had lived up to its reputation as a peaceful city; its rapid growth not only as the economic hub of north eastern Nigeria but also central Africa owes to this disposition. Its adopted motto on vehicle licenses is “Home of Peace.”

Before my parents came to Maiduguri, my father, then working with the Christian missionary organization, Lake Chad Project, had worked and lived extensively on the banks of the Lake Chad at health facilities in places as Kukawa, Allagarno, Malam Fatori, etc. Since at the time many of these towns lacked basic facilities like schools, we were sent off to a boarding school at the foot of the Gwoza-Ngoshe hills. The school located at Limankara, is between Gwoza town and Madagali along the Maiduguri-Bama-Minchika-Mubi road. Later, as a secondary student in Gindiri, in present Plateau State, I regularly plied the Jos – Bauchi- Maiduguri Road; passing through such towns as Potiskum, Damagum, Damaturu and Beni Shiek.