50 villages deserted in Niger over banditry attacks

At least, 50 villages in five local government areas of Niger State have been deserted over insecurity ravaging the state.

Presently, the state is facing a serious humanitarian crisis as many of the Internally Displaced Persons now spread to every part of the state.

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Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, said this when he declared opened a two-day workshop on strategies for enhancing Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of local government councils in Minna, the state capital.

“As we speak, we have not less than 50 villages deserted across 5 local governments now.

“Where do we get the resources to take care of them if 80% of our resources go to those that do not add value to the system?

“Now, we have to deal with humanitarian problems and security problems. All these require resources that we do not have. So the only way we can survive is to increase our IGR.

“At the moment, we have over 3,000 IDPs in Minna, apart from other local governments,” he said.

The Governor urged participants to be attentive, actively participate and make meaningful contributions that will give them more insight into strategies of enhancing IGR for socioeconomic development at the local government levels.

Chairman, Local Government Service Commission, Muhammad Ahmed Dabban, and the Permanent Secretary of the Commission, Nuhu Garba Ngaski, in their separate remarks, explained that the workshop was organised for local government directors of administration and finance, Revenue officers as well as heads of finance of development areas in Niger State.

They both said that the workshop is primarily to ensure proper and accurate implementation of financial memoranda, have an internal control system for enhancing revenue collection by the councils, enhance capacity as well as improve the quality of participants in their respective duties among others at the local government levels.