In an exclusive interview by the Daily Trust Newspaper with Governor Kashim Shettima on April 30, 2014, and published in Sunday Trust of May 4, 2014 and May 11, 2014 respectively, the governor was asked: you were reported to have said you have been unhappy as governor. Why?
He then replied: how can I be happy when citizens I am under constitutional oath, and with moral and religious duty, to protect are being killed? How can I be happy when as we speak, over 200 daughters of Borno are being held somewhere? How can I be happy when hundreds of Borno sons and daughters are six feet under the ground out of cruelty? How can I be happy when, as a governor, I am forced to close down schools? How can I be happy when hundreds have lost their homes and sources of livelihood? How can I be happy when we have spent over NI0 billion that should have been used for developmental needs to resist man’s inhumanity against man, and yet we are still spending? How can I be happy when people were forced to close their shops, avoid markets, abandon schools, and stay away from the relations?
He continued, in his answer: how can I be happy when the economy of Borno is being grounded to a halt by our own people? I just don’t want to go on, please. Only Allah knows exactly how I feel. Not even I can explain the extent of what goes through my mind every day. There was one night, about one and half years ago, I was thinking that I should resign. I was so frustrated that the insurgents were waxing very strong; I was feeling helpless and I didn’t want Borno to collapse and surrender to insurgents under a regime that had me at the helm of affairs. But then, I thought that somebody has to be at the helm of affairs in Borno. If I am not there, someone has to be there. By the way, I asked myself, what was it that was to make me leave? Was it fear of death, a fear of challenge or just trauma?
“I am a fanatic of motivational quotes. There was one by Meg Cabot that inspires me, which states that “courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.” That night, I then said to myself, wasn’t it better for a leader to die for a good cause than to abandon his own kinsmen and women to live for nothing at all and forever be remembered for abandoning his people? Since that day, I made up my mind to confront whatever challenge was before Borno State and work towards the recovery and progress of the state. I have conquered the fear of challenge, but I live with the reality of the trauma our citizens’ fate and that gives me immense headache,” the governor had said.
Between April 2014 when Governor Kashim granted the press interview and now, his lamentations in 2014 is a child’s play or a drop in the ocean compared to the current dispensation. Between April 30, 2014 and July 2017, much water has passed under the bridge as the state has witnessed series of severe travails under the insurgency, though there has been some respite, like the release of over a hundred of the abducted Chibok school girls, though in the face of degrading and decimating fire-power of the insurgents.
The state has, however, witnessed more deaths, blood and sorrow. For example, according to the data released in April 2016 by the North-east Recovery and Peace Building Assessment (RPBA) team, $6 billion would be needed for recovery efforts in the region which has lost $9 billion to insurgency. The data released in Abuja during the two-day final validation and consensus workshop, noted that the devastation so recorded happened between 2011 and 2015.
According to the report presented by Dr. Mariam Masha, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Borno was worst hit by Boko Haram insurgency with a loss of $6 billion. She stated that the region suffered damage worth $3 billion, to livestock and agriculture.
The RPBA also pointed out Yobe State’s devastation, adding that the damage in other parts of the region was enormous but with less gravity. It added that no fewer than 20,000 lives were lost while over 1.8 million people were displaced.
Masha further explained that the RPBA would try to generate the needed funds for rehabilitation of the North-East through partnership with donor groups. The report recommended a four-year strategic plan to restore the North-East to progress and development.
From the outset of the insurgency, there was this belief that the Boko Haram sect was a group fighting against western education on the ground that such education corrupts, but later, there emerged other groups with different interests, rightly or wrongly, linked to Boko Haram’s. There are religious Boko Haram, criminal Boko Haram and political Boko Haram. As a matter of fact, the Boko Haram sect under the leadership of Shekau had on some occasions distanced itself from some crimes committed by the so-called group or groups.
Notwithstanding the tag or colouration of these groups, they are all perceived to be operating in Borno for one reason or the other, with the attendant evils and devastation.
By the latest account, over 10 billion dollars of infrastructure had been destroyed.
*Izekor, a journalist and public affairs analyst, writes at thepointng.com
