THE Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has made calls for the convening of an international donor’s conference that would holistically tackled the economic and infrastructural needs of the northeast of Nigeria which has borne the brunt of the six-year violent uprising from adherents of the Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda’Awati Wal Jihad, known popularly as Boko Haram.

Dogara first made the call in a motion he sponsored in August last year, on the urgent need for rehabilitation, recovery, reconstruction and resettlement of the violence ravaged region.

Since then, at every fora,  the Speaker has continued to champion the course of the north east while arguing that the region deserves global attention as a member of the international community.

His call is in line with what has been  happening since the end of the World War II where international conferences like that  held for Western Europe and Japan which were rebuilt following adoption of the American Marshall Plan, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Gaza and recently for Syria. There is therefore,  no reason why same  can’t be done for the north-east of Nigeria. It should be noted that, the scale of devastation, destruction and damage in the region far excedes what happened in some of the countries and regions listed above but which the international community didn’t hesitate to support to rebuild.

The region, even before the violence erupted years ago, is one of the poorest in the world. A recent report by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP said Borno state  alone has lost trillions of Naira economic ally while not fewer than 20,000 people were killed even though most North east indigenes are of the view that this figure is grossly below the actual figure.

All one needs to be convinced about a call for such is to take a trip to some of the villages recently liberated in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. Communities were not only totally razed to the ground but one is left with no option than to conclude that the insurgents were all out to annihilate every living and non-living beings in the affected areas.

These fundamentalists succeeded in  wasting large swaths of territories in those states, especially Borno state, which was the epicenter of the violence. Presently, officially over 2.2 million Nigerians are living as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in  several  states of the country including the Federal Capital Territory, while thousands others are refugees in Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic. Again, the number of IDPs is far more than 2.2 million as it ranges between 5 million to 5.5 million because majority of those displaced are not living camps but are being housed by relations both within and outside the affected areas.

To buttressed Dogara’s call, UNHCR’s Representative to Nigeria, Ms Angele Dikongue- Atangana, during the organisation’s 2015 stakeholders’ briefing, urged donors and partners to take a trip to the ‘field’ to see the level of destruction for a first hand assessement of the situation.

This is because there are dozens of villages in the northeast that have been totally destroyed.  The attack on Dalori is still fresh instance. It was reported that  entire houses in the village were torched. The enormity of the task in rebuilding the area, especially the cost is something that even the federal government might not be able to take on alone. Hence the call for a donor conference.

This view is also shared by the Chairman, Presidential Committee on Northeast Initiative, retired Lt.-Gen. Theophilus Danjuma recently, when he said that conservatively,  over two trillion naira (N2 trillion) will be required in the short-term to rebuild areas devastated by the Boko Haram insurgency.

He added that the rebuilding of the region would require the cooperation of all, considering that the magnitude of destruction was beyond the means of the federal or state governments. He further noted that rebuilding the Northeast would demand maximum cooperation and resources.

The rebuilding effort by governors of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa are mere drops in a vast ocean of need that wouldn’t make much difference. For example, Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima has been building some houses in Bama and other local governments.

But without help from outside to address the destruction in over 20 local governments that were initially intermittently occupied and destroyed by the insurgents, it would not go far.

Moreso, the destruction in Gwoza and Bama, two of the worst-hit local governments in Borno and their current needs goes beyond even the complete federal allocations that accrue to Borno state for now. Same for other local governments in the state and other northeast states where their need stands beyond rebuilding houses.

But  the utmost importance for the northeast is not only housing but health care, women and youth empowerment, education and agriculture.  Sufficiently meeting these needs would require the involvement of the international community. As with these areas targeted, the people of the northeast and the region in general stand the chance of having positive multiplier effect roll back to them.

This is why the call by the Speaker for an international donor conference  is  apt, timely and holds the solution to addressing the destruction in the northeast because other places have held such international conferences with success. The recent one was the International Donors conference for reconstruction and development in Dafur, held in Doha, Qatar from 7-8 April 2013.

This donor conference brought together representatives of the Government of Sudan, the international donor community, the development banking sectors, international and national Non-Governmental Organizations and international funds and foundations and provided a forum for the Darfur Regional Authority and the Government of Sudan to discuss with its development partners the needs for economic recovery, development and poverty eradication in the aftermath of the conflict in Darfur.

Likewise the Syrian donor conference held in London where over $10 billion was pledged so much that the UnitedNations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed the conference as a “great success,” saying, “Never has the international community raised so much money on a single day for a single crisis.”

Just like the speaker noted, the world now is a global village in which the effect of a massive population shift within the northeast could have spiraling effect on the world. Europe is battling to halt the massive influx of refugees from Syria, Iraq and the middle east; it is therefore in the collective interest of the international community that funds are raised to resettle the IDPs and refugees from Nigeria so as to avoid another surge to the mediteranian sea where thounsands of migrants are dying every year in their desperate effort to cross to Eupore.

Already the impact of the effect of the insurgents is felt in our neighboring countries and the need for such conference now can’t be overemphasised. Consequently, just like the speaker has done, the leaders of this country should start persuading world leaders and work toward having something like that, even if it’s in Africa.

And Dogara, deserve not only to be supported but also commended by all for his consistency in pushing for the convocation of the confab. The responsiblity of doing that now rests with the Federal government or the Executive as the parliament or legislature cannot delve into that since it is not within its powers to do so.

Mr.  Turaki Hassan, is SA (Media & Public Affairs) to Rt. Hon. Speaker, House of Representatives.