-The governor said it has been two years since the money for the project was release and nothing has been done yet on Chibok school
On Monday, December 26, Governor Kashim Shettima, accompanied by the senate majority leader representing Borno South, Mr Mohammed Ndume, spent his Boxing day at Chibok and hosted the 21 recently freed Chibok schoolgirls to a Christmas feast at a Government building in Chibok.
The governor who announced 2016 Christmas as his best Christmas in five years said it wasn't because only because 21 of the 200 kidnapped schoolgirls finally returned home after spending more than two years in captivity but also because 2016 is the year the state has finally recorded a significant victory against the Boko Haram insurgents that has plagued the state.
Shettima however, called out for the report on the unaccounted N500 million set aside by the federal government for rebuilding of the Government Girls School in Chibok.
The governor who was clearly unhappy by the abandoned state of Government Girls College in Chibok said that the fund to reconstruct the school was released under the Safe School Initiative programme initiated by the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan's administration.
Governor Shettima, addressing villagers in Chibok town on Monday, Decemeber 26, lamented how the misfortune of the people has become a money making venture for some group of people.
He called out the contractor handling the Chibok school project, demanding for an investigation of the money released, particularly because the school has remained in a state of disrepair since the abduction of the girls.
The safe school initiative programme initiated by the immediate past Goodluck Jonathan administration was introduced after the abduction of school girls in Chibok and the reconstruction was supposed to include a state of the art library, a laboratory, a computer and ICT Centre, a sports arena and a clinic.
Former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had flown to Chibok to commission the 500 million naira rebuilding and Safe School Project in a foundation laying ceremony in the school where the girls were taken.
Two years after the foundation laying programme and announcement by the government, nothing appears to have been done in the school as students of the school remained at home.
Shettima told residents of Chibok that his administration would pressurise the Federal Government to uncover those who might have diverted the money.
The governor who arrived Chibok town in the afternoon and spent the whole Monday in the town participated in a series of lined up activities slated for the Boxing day, the main one being a generous amount of time spent with the freed Chibok girls.
In his speech to the freed girls, the governor stated that: “As you know, 56 of your colleagues who escaped abduction are currently in two international schools where they have been since 2014.”
To the villagers and parents of the girls, he said: “We are taking care of all their educational needs from school fees to other basics. Left to me, I would want the 21 of you to join them in those two schools so that you can all feel at home and move on. However, the Federal Government has a plan which we will jointly discuss and come up with a decision that is acceptable to you our daughters."
“President Muhammadu Buhari loves you so much and he is deeply concerned about our daughters that are yet to be freed. He is working on that and we are all working."
Meanwhile, the governor in his 2017 budget has set aside N13 billion for rehabilitating, reconstructing and resettling communities liberated from Boko Haram. The money will be allocated to the newly formed Ministry of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (MRRR).
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