By; MOHAMMED KAWU, Bauchi.
Emir of Dass in Bauchi state, Uthman Bilyaminu Usman has counseled Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, release funds directly to states and Local government councils in Northeast sub-region ravaged by insurgency to carry out the rehabilitation of their respective communities in line with the needs of those communities.
The Royal Father gave the advice in Bauchi at a stakeholders engagement meeting when the Economic Development Sub-Committee of the Presidential Committee on Northeast Initiative visited the state on a fact finding mission towards facilitating good governance in the Northeast sub-region of the country.
Uthman, who did not minced his words in his plea to the Federal government, explained that even before the insurgency devastation, the Northeast sub-region lagged behind in feeling the presence of Federal Government in terms of infrastructural development.
He told the 21-member committee, “We don’t have Industries, Dams for dry season farming, Federal Institutions of Technology for technology advancement, Educational infrastructure are obsolete, only one functional teaching hospital and one or two federal projects”.
The emir explained that due to lack of federal infrastructures within the sub-region, the rate of unemployment is at all-time high because the capacities of state governments in the Northeast are overstretched especially with the influx of IDPs into urban areas.
“Our youths are redundant and wasting with no employment which led some of them into drug addiction. Even when we rehabilitate them, there is no avenue to engage them in a productive ventures that can take their minds off drugs, and so you find them drifting back into drugs”.
The Royal father, sited Bauchi state an example in the total collapse of industries in the sub-region with few moribund industries like Steyr Company, Zaki Flour Mills, Misau Ceramics and Asbestos industries that were hitherto employer of labor, complementing state government’s efforts in employment, are no longer working.
