Governors in the North-East have elected Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, as the pioneer chairman of their forum, for a period of two years.
This was contained in a communique issued at the end of the forum’s second meeting, which held in Maiduguri on Saturday.
The communique was signed by the Forum’s Chairman and governor of Borno, Zulum.
The communique showed that the meeting was attended by governors of Adamawa- Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, Gombe- Mohammed Inuwa Yahaya, Borno- Prof. Babagana Umara Zulum, Bauchi- Sen. Bala Mohammed, Deputy Governors of Taraba- Engr Haruna Manu and Yobe, Idi Barde Gubana.
The governors also agreed to make Maiduguri headquarters of their forum.
They called on the Federal Government to deploy more state of the art military hardware in the armed forces fighting the Boko Haram in the region.
It commended the efforts of the Federal Government in fighting insurgency but urged the armed forces to intensify efforts to secure hard-to-reach areas in the region and ensure safe access to farmlands.
“The Forum recommends that the manpower deficit in the Nigerian Armed Forces should be bridged by allowing the Police to carry state of the art weapons where necessary and be provided with strategic equipment like high-velocity tear gas, trackers and Armoured Personnel Carriers,” the communique added.
It also called on the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to ensure that attention was given to recharging the Lake Chad from national water bodies and strengthening the river basins in the sub-region.
The communique, however, called on the Federal Government to revoke selected road contracts awarded by the Federal Ministry of Works for years without progress and re-award the same to more competent contractors with funding to ensure timely execution.
“The Forum affirmed its commitment to support the Federal Government agenda of transforming the Almajiri system with a view to strengthening both Islamic and western education as well as stopping street begging and prevalence of out of school children in the region as agreed by the Northern governors.
“The Forum also nominated Zulum as Chairman of the Forum for a period of two years and the headquarters of the Forum will be located in Maiduguri,” it said.
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