Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the rebuilding and rehabilitation of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North-Eastern part of the country will cost the country whopping amount of money and time to restore them.
Osinbajo, who disclosed this during an engagement forum with stakeholders at the behest of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA in collaboration with the Office of the Vice President lamented that the region has suffered tremendously in the past six years as a result of destruction of their infrastructure, farmlands, businesses, and trades.
He said, “Rebuilding, restoring and rehabilitation will cost money and time. But neither money nor time can fix the trauma of loss of family, relations and friends.
“The tasks before us are many and profound, to fix brick and mortar and to mend hearts and minds damaged by senseless murderous violence. But we are called not just to mend the hearts and minds of the victims but also of their traducers, and killers.
“Your being here underscores not just your empathy for victims of terror but it also demonstrates the outrage and anger that we all feel about the mindless killings, abductions and wanton destruction perpetrated by the sect.”
He added that the north- east region “has suffered tremendously in the past six years; the destruction of infrastructure, farmlands, businesses, and trades. The destruction of schools and the loss of school years; rebuilding, restoring and rehabilitation will cost money and time; but neither money nor time can fix the trauma of loss of family, relations and friends.”
The vice president said he was impressed with the large turnout of participants to the two -day event which he observed as expression of their collective determination to “to find the most cost effective and creative ways to intervene in restoring the dignity, family lives and livelihoods of the hundreds of thousands of IDPs in the North East.”
As efforts are being made to rehabilitate them, the stakeholders in the management of the crisis said there is urgent need for transparency and strengthening of disaster management structure of key players managing crisis in the region.
The stakeholders had in a communiqué issued at the just concluded two-day engagement forum in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital made available to journalists , stated that there is need for better management of communication in emergency situations.
The communiqué explained that the aim is to ensure that activities of local and international humanitarian actors are well coordinated, monitored and evaluated, to avoid duplication of efforts and waste of resources.
