Governpr Shettima – Boko Haram Will Soon Be History

Bukola Olatunji

12 June 2011

Boko Haram will be history in another year or two, “Insha Allah”, Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, has said.

Shettima, who expressed this optimism during a courtesy call on the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Dr. Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed, in Abuja at the weekend, said Boko Haram could “be traced to issues of illiteracy and poverty and you cannot fight poverty in this age without education.” He added, “Most of the educational indices in Borno are abysmally very poor figures, such that it is embarrassing for me to quote some of them, of which you are all familiar.”

Seventy-two per cent of Borno State’s children are out of school, the highest out of school rate in the country. The state also has more than N2 billion in federal government’s special intervention funds unaccessed at UBEC, due to its failure to pay the required counterpart funds over the years.

The governor tendered “our unreserved apology on behalf of the government and people of Borno State for the inability of the government to access the intervention funds of the UBE (Universal Basic Education) for the past couple of years. I want to assure the leadership of the commission that there is a change in the baton of leadership in the state and we are poised to really approach headlong, the myriad of problems confronting us as a people. We are determined, this time around, to turn a new leaf. I want us to be partners towards the educational advancement of Borno.”

Responding, Mohammed said the governor’s visit had made their day and year. According to him, Borno is one of the states that had given his commission “very serious nightmares”, such that its management and governing board members had visited the state thrice. He expressed shock that on one of the visits, they found no fewer than 10, 000 pupils in just one school, Garba Buzu Islamiyya School, who were not prepared to be integrated into the basic education system, while the formal public schools had empty classrooms.”

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