• Return to forest if not grateful, Zulum tells repentant terrorists
• Says IDPs’ feeding gulped N40b in six years
Two labourers have reportedly lost their lives in bomb explosions at two separate construction sites in Dikwa Local Council of Borno State.
A counter-insurgency expert in the Lake Chad region, Zagazola Makama, said the first Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast occurred at Koibe Primary School.
The Guardian gathered from another source that the blast occurred when a labourer transporting bricks to a section of the school under construction, ignorantly conveyed an IED.
The source said the second IED exploded and killed another construction worker at a different site on the outskirts of Koibe.
Five persons sustained injuries during the blast.
Last month, an IED mistaken for metal scrap killed six children in an Islamic school in Gubio Local Council of the state.
Governor Babagana Zulum had banned the activities of scrap metal collectors in the state, last year, for “causing deaths of many residents”.
MEANWHILE, Zulum has told repentant terrorists to go back to Sambisa Forest and the bushes, if they are not grateful for being reintegrated into the society.
This was as he said the feeding of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) gulped about N40 billion in six years.
According to him, the over two million IDPs were living in camps and host communities of Maiduguri Metropolitan Council (MMC) and 26 other local councils.
Zulum disclosed the spending on feeding, yesterday, at Mafa, his country home, while addressing repentant Boko Haram terrorists and their families over the economic hardships in camps and host communities.
He added that the N40 billion was expended on food and basic needs of displaced persons in the last six years.
On inflation, the governor disclosed: “The economic hardship, triggered by fuel subsidy removal, was, however, a global state of economies, associated with the two-year war between Russia and Ukraine.”
He noted that even the five-month Gaza conflict between Israel and Palestine fuelled the rising costs of living globally.
The governor said the displaced persons, including the repentant terrorists, should be grateful to the state government for integrating them into communities.
“We have sustained the feeding programme to meet their basic needs of life,” he said, “and reintegrated them into communities with livelihoods.”
He declared that if the repentant terrorists were not grateful, they should return to Sambisa Forest and the bushes.
Zulum commended the Federal Government, the military, security agencies and volunteers for their support in improving the security situation in the state.
