The northeast geo-political zone made up of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe states has concluded plans to launch a commercial airline called the North East Regional Air Shuttle.
Chairman of the Northeast Governors’ Forum and governor of Borno State, Prof Babagana Zulum disclosed this at the 7th meeting of the forum held yesterday in Gombe, Gombe State.
He said the dream of floating the airline would come to fruition as soon as a number of financial and technical requirements are met.
He said the forum since its birth in Gombe State two years earlier had become a formidable avenue for social cohesion and a rallying point for people in the northeast to collectively discuss and identify common challenges and proffer pragmatic and viable ways and means of addressing the challenges.
He said the regional carrier would help to expand the business frontiers of the northeast after years of insecurity that has stalled development in the region.
“Our decision to float a commercial airline, known as the North-East Regional Air Shuttle Limited, for the region is also coming to fruition as soon as a number of financial and technical requirements are met,” Zulum said.
He complained about different forms of insecurity which have been the hallmark of the region describing them as “worrisome”.
“As we have comprehensively articulated in our earlier meetings, the most prominent of these daunting challenges include insecurity, largely characterised by the Boko Haram insurgency, the issue of banditry and kidnapping, which unfortunately, is assuming a worrisome dimension, cattle rustling and other forms of criminality as well as endemic socio-economic issues like youth restiveness, massive unemployment and extreme poverty, among others.
“Equally, we have been able to classify and analyse the best possible ways of dealing with the challenges in both the short and long term measures. As we have noted, time and again, the concomitant effects of insecurity in the northeast are widespread and pervasive.
In general, the scale of insecurity in the region has displaced hundreds of thousands of our people and adversely affected their socio-economic live-wire, thereby subjecting them to a life of extreme poverty and deprivation,” he said.
Zulum therefore urged the national assembly for improved budgetary allocation for the region to aid reconstruction in the 2023 budget.
“I need to however make a passionate appeal to the federal government and the national assembly to incorporate into the 2023 budget of the federal government the reconstruction and rehabilitation of many federal roads in the north-east region, which have been in deplorable condition for years.
“Although the level of insecurity in the region then was a tenable reason for delaying the reconstruction of the roads, the security situation now has improved tremendously. As it is now, the northeast has the least federal budget allocation for road construction and it is fair and reasonable for the federal government to inject the needed funds for the construction and reconstruction of federal roads within the region.
“So on behalf of my colleagues, I am calling on the national assembly, particularly the senators and representatives from the north-east zone to, as a matter of urgent priority, include the repairs and construction of a network of federal roads within the zone,” he said.
