Follow Us on Google
From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Senator representing Borno Central Senatorial zone, Kassim Shettima has decried the absence of federal government presence in Chibok, Gwoza and other communities in Borno State.
Shettima, spoke, Wednesday, at a public hearing organized by the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions, on 10 bills for the establishment of new tertiary health institutions in different parts of the country.
He expressed support for two of the bills,which is geared towards the establishment a Federal College of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Science in Chibok and a Federal Medical Centre in Gwoza.
According to him, “To the people of Gwoza, Damboa, Chibok, poverty is not a subject of philosophical dispute but the reality of everyday life. The people are conditioned in the furnace of poverty and destitution.
” There is an incestous relationship between economy and ecology that gave rise to the insecurity that has ravaged the north eastern part of Nigeria. Gwoza and Chibok are by-words for disaster. Chibok is about the most famous community in Borno State.
“We have the moral obligation to make the people have a sense of belonging. There is a need for federal presence in these two communities of Gwoza and Chibok. They are in the heart of what is called the Sambisa Forest. They do not have any medical facilities.
” For these communities there is some sort of time capsule, trapped by insecurity, destitution and hopelessness. So we have a moral obligation to give hope to the people. The beauty of establishing such facilities is that the multiplier effect is unquantifiable.Before you know it, the depressed economy of those localities would start prospering.”
The chairman of the committee,Pascal Obi, said the public hearing was to get inputs of stakeholders to guide the lawmakers in processing the proposed legislation.
