ABUJA – The Federal Government on Friday announced 10 million dollars (N1.6 billion) to support the `Safe School Initiation.’
The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, made the announcement at the closing news briefing of the 24th World Economic Forum on Africa, in Abuja.
She explained that the amount was to support the launch of the initiative by the Nigerian Business Community at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa.
The Nigerian business community had launched the initiative with 10 million dollars to support effort to find the Chibok girls and to ensure safety of Nigerian girls at school.
According to Okonjo-Iweala, the scheme will start with 500 schools from the Northern Nigeria as a pilot scheme.
“The safe school initiative supported by Gordon Brown and our business community is one direct outcome of this forum.
“The government will partner with them; this is what we are doing and planning to make schools safe.
“Mr President has announced another 10 million dollars to match the existing 10 million dollars put in by the business community.’’
Okonjo-Iweala said that there had been direct interest and additional investment from local business community, adding that investment of domestic investors would help to create more jobs.
This, she said, would also help give the youth sense of belonging, make them feel that they still have a future in the country and that they were safe and secured.
According to her, government’s commitment to rescue the abducted girls will not stop with WEF, which has helped to rally the international community support on the issues.
“We are grateful for WEF, we are grateful to the international community for coming here to support us, the attendance was extremely strong.
“More than a thousand participated leaving a few dropped off as a result of the incident and that underlines the long term strength that people see in Africa and in Nigerian Economy.”
Also, UN Special Envoy on Education, Mr Gordon Brown, said terrorism could not stop progress in Africa and effort to bring back the girls would continue to intensify until they were released.
He said that Nigerian had gotten support of the international community in fighting terrorism, adding that the UN Secretary General had also made a statement on the issues of the Chibok girls.
“I am just coming out of a meeting with President Jonathan and I have been talking to him about what we the international community could do to support the Nigerian government,’’ he said
Brown said that he had also passed on other offer made apart from UK, U.S., China and France governments to support to locate the girls.
He assured that the international community was committed to ensure that the girls were saved, adding that the action was the worst that could happen to the girls.
He said the families would be supported and also advocated other international donor organisations and individuals to support the initiative of the business community of Nigeria.
“Our first worry is about the girls, we want to bring them back,’’ Brown said. (NAN)
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