Governor Shettima visits Boko Haram internally displaced people at one of their camps

Borno state government, in north east Nigeria, says it is spending over N600 million( about $3.3million) monthly to feed those displaced by the violence of Boko Haram in 20 local government areas of the state.

The state Deputy Governor, Alhaji Zannah Mustapha, made this known while speaking to newsmen in Yola on Saturday.

Mustapha said there were about two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Maiduguri.

” We have of recent also evacuated about 43,000 IDPs of Borno indigene from Adamawa to Maiduguri,” he said.

He explained that government had commenced free food programme for both the IDPs in camps and those staying with relatives in the state.

Mustapha, who solicited for Federal Government’s assistance, said that the state government was expending almost all it’s monthly allocation on IDPs.

Mustapha said 90 per cent of the people could not cultivate their farmland due to insecurity, a development, he explained, posed a serious threat to food security in the state.

” We are not finding things easy at all,” he said.

The deputy governor, who was in Yola to celebrate Christmas with the IDPs from Askira/Uba and Gwoza local government areas of Borno who are now taking refuge in Adamawa, said he was happy with the condition in the camps.

He urged the Federal Government to intensify its effort in liberating the areas still under the control of the insurgency, adding that 2015 general election particularly those of the Presidency and Governors would be inconclusive if those areas were not recovered for the people to vote.