By Ndahi Marama

MAIDUGURI— Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and the regional coordinator, UN Humanitarian Service, Sahel region, Mr. Toby Lanzer, has said the humanitarian situation in Borno State was worse than anywhere else he had visited.

Lanzer, who disclosed this to newsmen in Maiduguri, shortly after returning from Bama to assess the level of destruction in the area, said: “The humanitarian consequences here is very high due to abject poverty, unemployment and illiteracy ravaging these parts of the world that need the attention and concerted effort by the global community.

“I believe that abject poverty, violence, extremism, climate change and unemployment are some of the issues that resulted in the untold sufferings.

“As we were travelling, we passed through Konduga and Bama, we have seen the level of destruction by Boko Haram, which I believe the international community has to intervene to bring succour to the people of Borno and the North East in general.

“I was really touched. Houses, markets, places of worship and public buildings were destroyed, in addition to the quantum of lives lost, just because some groups believe that they don’t share the same ideology with them.   We in United Nations stand with the Nigerian government, we are going to support them. By my coming here, it is a testimony of the United Nations’ commitment to the war-torn region”.

Lanzer said the UN would work with all stakeholders to better the lives of the people, stressing that they were going to step up their humanitarian response by introducing cash-based programmes to inject cash to the people, so that they could buy foods of their choice for survival.

While taking the UN Assistant Secretary General round the destroyed town of Bama, Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State said the state government would build 1000 units of houses at Bama, in addition to the reconstruction of all public institutions.

He said the state government had to reconstruct all the destroyed communities, so that the people would  go back to their communities and called on the international community and individuals to assist the state in the  herculean task.