Pres. Jonathan Visits Baga | Promises to Rebuild Homes

President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday assured internally displaced persons that the situation they found themselves due to insurgency would be short-lived as government was willing to dislodge the Boko Haram insurgency in the country.

The President gave the indication when he visited the people of Baga in Borno State at the internally displaced camp in Maiduguri.

The Presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, told State House correspondents on Jonathan’s return from a visit to the military base, the military hospital and the IDP camp in Borno that the president promised to change the status of the victims by helping to rebuild their homes.

“What he (the President) told them was that being an internally displaced person is not a natural state; it is not the kind of state in which any person will like to be permanently.

“These are human beings, women, men, children who have been used to their own natural habitats who have been displaced on account of a particular situation.

“He assured them that they should not panic as government would not only make sure that they would not only be provided for but that being an internally displaced person does not become for them a permanent status.

“Rather it will be a short term and that government would do everything possible to relocate them to make sure they return safely to their communities and help them also to rebuild their communities,’’ he said.

Abati said that the President met with no fewer than 900 IDPs from Baga who welcomed the federal delegation with enthusiasm.

According to him, the visit is not political but part of the morale booster for the armed forces and Nigerians who marked the remembrance of the fallen armed forces members in the day.

Abati also acknowledged the support of the international community in the fight against insurgency in the country and expressed the hope that the crisis would soon end.