Shettima visits Bama, doles out N300m to victims

From Mustapha Isa Kwaru, Maiduguri

Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima on Sunday visited Bama to assess the recent carnage in the town that claimed the lives of over 100 people, even as he released N300 million for the immediate rebuilding of the destroyed town.

Shettima said the attack on Bama did not only further reflect the lunacy of Boko Haram but also an “assault on the pride and integrity of our people as a whole”.

The governor’s visit to Bama came at the time residents of Malari village in Konduga local government area were burying two farmers killed on Saturday by Boko Haram gunmen.

Shettima, who spent five hours in Bama inspecting the extent of the destruction brought upon the people by the Boko Haram, said the people needed prompt and immediate assistance.

He instructed an eight-man committee set up by him to immediately reconstruct destroyed houses, schools and other public buildings.

The committee led by Alhaji Jidda Shuwa, a retired federal perm sec, was directed by the governor to “boycott all bureaucratic bottlenecks to ensure speedy rebuilding of the town”.

The Shehu of Bama who had earlier conducted Governor Shettima round the town pleaded for his fleeing subjects to return home as government was putting all strategies in place to secure their lives from further attacks.

The visibly irked monarch had threatened to force open all the homes of rich residents of Bama who had locked up their homes and fled to Maiduguri and Abuja in order to allow residents who had lost their homes occupy them. He said doing so would serve as a punishment for their unpatriotic desertion of their towns in times of difficulties only to return in time of politics.