Professor Sunday Ochoche, Executive Director, Victims Support Fund (VSF) has identified insecurity and political interference as some of the challenges hampering effective implementation of various intervention programmes in Boko Haram affected communities in Yobe state.
The Executive Director stated this in an interview with DAILY POST at a multi-stakeholders forum held today, Wednesday, in Damaturu.
In his words, “The challenges have been much, security remains one of the biggest challenges we have in our intervention. For example, there are some communities that we want to provide water to them, but getting contractors to go and drill has been the challenge because they don’t feel secure enough to mobilize to those sites.
“Even one of our projects, the biggest school reconstruction program in Yobe state, the boarding primary school in Gaidam, which we just finished reconstructing but unfortunately the recent attack on the town affected it and some of the blocks that were reconstructed were destroyed. So now we need to go back to make assessment of the destructions to that all over.
Prof. Ochoche also noted that there is political interference in VSF’s program where unqualified persons are being shortlisted to benefit from interventions meant for victims of insurgency in the state.
“The agricultural program in Yobe last year was delayed for example, because the selection process we found was faulty, some of the people they wanted put on it were not genuine farmers. We had council it, that delayed program. In one or two other areas those types of tendencies have manifested to influence the process”, he stated.
The multi-stakeholders forum was aimed at discussing and analysing the VSF interventions in the state and also to assess its relevance and impacts in improving the lives of the victims of insurgency.
The meeting had also among other issues discussed and analysed the emerging trends and made appropriate recommendations for future interventions.
Developing appropriate strategies for effective response in the North East was the theme of the forum where over 50 critical stakeholders on humanitarian affairs were in attendance.
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