Borno spends N515m to take political thugs off streets

Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Umara, on Thursday said N515m was spent on getting political thugs off the streets of Maiduguri metropolis.

The governor’s revelation came even as the United Nations Development Programme said it was buying into the state government’s “cash for sanitation initiative,” a programme which pays each political thug N30,000 monthly for six months after signing a bond not to be involved in political thuggery again.

Umara had in July 2019 launched a “cash for sanitation” programme through which 2,862 registered members of political thuggery groups were being paid N30,000 between July and December (six months) to abandon thuggery and clean the streets.

When the payment ended in December, the state government subsequently ordered the arrest and prosecution of anyone caught involved in political thuggery.

Speaking at the re-launch of the scheme on Thursday, Umara said the 2,862 youths were drawn from the 15 wards in Maiduguri Metropolitan Council and six wards of Jere.

The governor said N515m was spent in making the monthly payments to the youth and that payments were made directly into individual’s accounts.

He said this was done in addition to getting the youth to acquire vocational skills so that they could become productive.

Meanwhile, the UNDP’s Representative in Borno, Yoshiaki Noguchi, while expressing the interest of the UN agency in the programme said the payment of N30,000 would be extended to the participants in the scheme for another three months.