By Najib Sani
Bauchi
Worried by the endemic problems bedevilling the North Eastern part of the country, especially the perpetual insecurity posed by the Boko Haram insurgents, a pressure group, North East Youth Initiative Forum (NEYIF), has joined other elders in the region to appeal to the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government to establish a commission for the development of the region.
The group made the appeal in a press statement issued yesterday by its national president, Comrade Dauda Muhammed Gombe, in Bauchi.
He lamented that the geo-political region had remained the least developed in terms of education, infrastructure and economy in the country despite its significant population “hence the need for the federal government to create the North East Development Commission just like it did the Niger Delta Development Commission.”
Gombe opined that if established, the commission should handle the issues of resettlement, rehabilitation and reconstruction of affected places destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgents as well as create jobs to the teeming restive youths in the area.
This is just as the group advised President Muhammadu Buhari to consider granting amnesty to Boko Haram militants, asserting that “it is the only thing that could bring an enduring solution to their menace since the security agents in the nation have been unable to defeat the terrorists for the past six years.”
It said: “We use this medium to appeal to the government to do everything possible to bring an end to this massacre and ensure that the lives and property of the citizens are protected. We believe that the use of force never solves the problem but dialogue is the best option of resolving misunderstanding or dispute.”
