Boko Haram: FG Floats N30bn 'Victims Support Fund', Inaugurates 'Safe Schools Initiative Committee'

President Goodluck Jonathan announced yesterday that the federal government has concluded plans to float a N30 billion support fund for victims of Boko Haram attacks across the country.
LEADERSHIP gathered that, while the
victims support fund got the endorsement of the Council of State on Tuesday, the federal government would be approaching Gen. Theophilus Danjuma to chair the fund, with Mr. Fola Adeola serving as his deputy.

President Jonathan who confirmed the floating of the fund when he inaugurated the Steering Committee for the Safe Schools Initiative at the presidential villa, Abuja.
He said, “We are also coming up with a package. Because we know that we need to intervene to cushion the effect of Boko Haram. So many people have been killed, we have widows and orphans. Properties have been destroyed, schools burnt.
Government is also coming up with what we call Victims Support Fund.
“We believe that government alone cannot cushion the effect. We want to mobilise resources within and outside Nigeria just like we did during the flood of 2012. We are trying to get somebody that will head that fund. We are looking at the 16th of this month to formally launch the fund.
Government will put something and
individuals will do too”.

The Safe Schools Initiative is being
implemented in collaboration with the
international community led by the
Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, the UN Special Envoy on Education and former British Prime Minister and a true friend of the nation.

Steering Committee for the Safe Schools Initiative inaugurated by the president yesterday is co-chaired by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Gordon Brown. Other members include Governors of Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, Aliko Dangote and Nduka Obaigbena, Women affairs, Wike, rep of NSA, DG NEMA, NCWS, civil society.

After inaugurating the committee,
Jonathan said in tackling insurgency,
government was deploying a three-point strategy that focuses on security to enhancement the country’s intelligence and military capability”.
He added that the federal government is also “seeking political solution by working with local governments and communities as well as economic solution through various economic empowerment and job creation programmes all directed at
combating insecurity.
“The safety of our children and the
security of their education must be
paramount to all of us. Tragic
occurrences like the kidnapping of the
Chibok girls must not rise again anywhere in this country”, he noted.
Jonathan continued: “This country is
passing through stress within this period caused by the excesses of the Boko Haram sect and our government has been approaching it from different fronts. We always insist that the defence or security does not end terror but we need to stop collateral damage on innocent people.
“For us to win the war, we need to look at it holistically: economic issues, educational issues, religious issues, socio-cultural issues etc. At the federal level, we have the Presidential Initiative in the North East (PINE). They are looking at the totality of what the Federal Government can do in collaboration with stakeholders.
He said, “Some states are fairly okay with one or two percent. But some states are as high as 70 percent. If the dropout rate of students at the basic level is as high as 70 percent, that means that only 30 percent only goes to school. That is
terrible.

Courtesy:
Leadership Newspaper