Abuja – Government officials in the North East have commended the Fadama 111- Additional Financing (AF) for its Food and livelihood support projects, which they said would assist many displaced persons to recover their normal life.
Some of the state governments` representatives from the North East expressed this opinion in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.
Mr Isaac Mela, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resource, Taraba State, said that the North East Food and livelihood support project would assist many Internally Displaced Persons in the state.
“This programme is going to support the recovering of livelihood, particularly in agriculture and Taraba state is one of the states that have huge potential in agriculture.
“Fadama 111 AF is definitely going to bring a huge benefit to Taraba because it would help those people that lost their means of livelihood to recover, particularly the IIDPs, “ he said.
According to Mela, many people were displaced due to internal clashes between herdsmen and farmers, so they were highly displaced but now they have returned.
The permanent secretary said that Taraba had be playing host to those that were displaced as a result of insurgency; some are from Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
“ There is a lot of inflow of such people in Taraba, thousands of people are there but they eventually affected our water supply, health facility and food security.
“The family of five people are now catering for 20 or more people and these were not prepared for but all of a sudden strangers just moved in.
“We have to accommodate and provide for them and try to provide food in situation where you don’t even have enough,“ he added.
He thanked Fadama 111-AF for offering a very good opportunity to Taraba because some IDPs would definitely be assisted with food and other means of livelihood.
More so, some of the IDPs may not go into farming but would be giving items like sewing machines, grounding machines among others that would help them to be productive and recover.
Mr Mustapha Gogobe, representing Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Yobe State, said the project would help to ameliorate the living conditions of some underprivileged people.
According to him, almost all the 17 Local Government Areas in the state were affected by the activities of the insurgents.
He said a great number of the populations of two Local Government Areas in the state were completely displaced.
Gogobe commended the World Bank for selecting Yobe to benefit from the programme.
“This assistance is very important because for over two years people had been displaced, they don’t have shelters because their houses were burnt and most of them ran away for their dear lives.
“ This kind of support is coming at the right time and we are very happy with it because people in the two local governments who were displaced are going back to their villages, “ he said.
Mr Mohammed Bako, Adamawa State Programme Coordinator, also praised Fadama 111- AF for selecting Adamawa as one of the states to benefit from the programme.
Bako said that the IDPs have started returning to their homes even as most of them had lost most of their belongings and means of livelihood.
He said the Fadama 111- AF intervention would assist these dispossessed people to start a new life.
“This project is going to help a lot of people in North East states, particularly Adamawa because the state government is really committed to see that this project is implemented 100 per cent.
“The government is ready to pay its counterpart funding, if the need arises but we are not expecting the communities to pay any counterpart funding, he said. (NAN)