NEWS: Boko Haram: US spends $200m in the North-east

– The United States government say that it has spent over $200 million on intervention programmes across states affected by Boko Haram

 – The USAID director pledged the country’s support to the fight against insurgency in Nigeria



Boko Haram.

Michael Harvey, the director, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Nigeria Mission stated this while speaking with journalists in Maiduguri on Wednesday, March 23.

 Harvey noted that the states and federal governments, the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the British government and other international donors were currently playing major roles in the intervention.

 Harvey who arrived Maiduguri Tuesday, March 23 went round the metropolis and visited some internally displaced person camps where he inspected completed and ongoing intervention projects.

 He said the USAID had been a major sponsor of UN agencies and other NGOs that would try to help IDPs currently taking refuge in various designated camps within and outside Borno State.

“We’ve been financing UNICEF to deal with health, water, sanitation, education issues. We’ve also been funding IOM to work with NEMA to do the counting and registration of IDPs.

 We’re working with international NGOs including the International Rescue Committee, Action Against Hunger and several other groups that are working in the camps to support SEMA and NEMA. It’s a big programme, but as you see around, the population
 – the need is huge.

 “We’re also going to be working on a new education programme in Borno for IDPs using the non-formal learning centres which we have been doing with IDP communities in other states,” he said.

Meanwhile, reports that emerged in the early hours of Thursday,March 24 suggested that Boko Haram had finally surrendered to the superior power of Nigeria.

 A video by The Leadership, shows the kingpin, Abubakar Shekau who was rumoured to have been killed, advising his followers to “surrender to save themselves”.