BY Mansur Ibrahim
Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno state, says the ravaging poverty in the northern part of the country is “the number one monster dragging the region backward”.
Speaking in Kaduna when governors from all the 19 states held a meeting with religious and traditional leaders on Monday, Shettima said it was high time to tackle the challenges in the region.
“Poverty, poverty and I say again, poverty, is to many of us, the number one monster dragging backward, our northern Nigeria,” he said.
“Many problems gave birth to growing poverty in the north. In reaction, poverty is also giving birth to many problems in the north.”
Shettima said the Boko Haram sect took advantage of the situation by using as little as N5,000 to recruit people to spy on soldiers fighting insurgency in the north-east.
“For instance, in June, 2013, we recorded a good number of extremely poor persons, who were recruited for as little as N5,000 to either spy on soldiers and report their vulnerability to insurgents, attack and set schools ablaze by late night or in some cases, poor old women were paid similar amounts by insurgents, to either keep arms in their huts or smuggle arms from one point to another,” he said.
He cited the instance of one Musa Grema, a 13 year old boy, who revealed that he accepted N5,000 to set three of our primary schools ablaze and also spy on soldiers.
Shettima said Grema’s parents relied on him for their feeding.
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