Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has called on the
international community to help tackle the humanitarian crisis in the North
East ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgency
“We call on the international community for help. Yes, the
Boko Haram terrorists are on the run, but the Boko Haram menace has not been
completely solved,” he said at the donation of 35,930 kilograms of seeds by the
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), to Borno State
Government in Maiduguri yesterday.
Obasanjo, an IITA Ambassador, said the international
community had great role to play in ensuring food security in the region.
“We have to tell the world that our problem in the North
East is not our inability to feed ourselves because we are lazy.
“Our problem has to do with the menace of Boko Haram and the
insecurity that we have to face for the past years”, he said.
Obasanjo commended Governor Kashim Shettima for his
numerous achievements in agriculture in spite of the Boko Haram insurgency.
“When I came in to the Farm Center, I saw this line of
tractors, 1000 of them, I also saw combined harvesters complete with their
implements.
“What stuck my mind was that we need to tell the world that
our problem in the North-East is not because people are not willing or ready to
work in agriculture.
“It has to do with the insecurity associated with the Boko
Haram insurgency”, he said.
In his address, Shettima thanked the former president for
the visit and for identifying with Borno people.
He said most of the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs had
started returning back to their liberated communities.
Shettima noted that the provision of new improved varieties
of maize, rice, millet, soyabean, sorghum, cowpea, will go along way in
completing efforts of the state government in its agricultural revolutionary
drive address unemployment and hunger, and promised continued partnership with
his government and IITA.
By Wale Odunsi
