Zulum visits  Damboa, sympathises with flood victims, doles out N172m, food items to 30,436 residents

AHMED MARI, Maiduguri

Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno state, was yesterday in Damboa to sympathised with the victims of flood and, coordinated the distribution of about N172 million cash and food items to 30,436 residents.

Briefing, the Governor, the chairman of Damboa local government areas, Prof. Adamu Aloma said   a total of 436 persons were identified as victims who lost shelters and food items to floods caused by  a recent downpour.

Prof Adamu Aloma said many houses were destroyed by the flood which caused the displacement of some families,.

While sympathizing with the victims if the flood, Zulum directed that each of the 436 victims be given N50,000 cash, a bag of maize grill, clothing materials and a mat and  urged residents to desist from building houses along waterways to forestall future occurrences.

Aside the 436 flood victims, Governor Zulum also supervised the distribution of N5,000 each and fabrics to 30,000 residents majority of whom are widows, vulnerable women and men from different communities.

On arriving Damboa on Sunday, the governor toured communities in Hausari, Old Damboa Market and Kachallaburari before passing night in the town.

To.boost farming activities in the area the , Governor also , directed the allocation of tractors, through a loan model, to farmers.

He said the tractors would accelerate the farming activities of residents.

On education, Zulum inspected an integrated mega Islamic school being built to combine Islamic and western education.

The visit was to accelerate completion in order to enable young people that attended traditional Islamic schools to qualify for tertiary education to acquire an equivalent of diploma certificates.

The governor has since approved construction of similar schools in Monguno in line with plans to have the schools in all 27 local government areas of Borno State.

Given its over 1,000 years’ history of Islamic scholarship, Borno has thousands of citizens with mainly Islamic education.

The higher Islamic schools provide such citizens, who meet certain criteria, the opportunities to qualify for admissions into integrated schools where they acquire equivalent of diplomas with which they could seek further western education to become graduates and go further.