Zulum Disburses N343m Cash to IDPs, Traders

Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, has shared N343 million as food aid to internally displaced persons (IDPs), and soft loans to petty traders in Gamboru, a Nigerian border town with Cameroon. Zulum, who was in Dikwa and Gamboru at the weekend, supervised the disbursement of N343million and varieties of food and humanitarian interventions to residents of the border community in Ngala Local Government Area of the state. The total sum of N343 million was shared-N150 million distributed as soft loan and grants to small and medium scale traders, while N193 million was disbursed to 48,700 vulnerable residents. The governor personally took time to verify the list of beneficiaries, explaining that his action was to ensure that only deserving persons were allotted the loans, aimed at stimulating the local economy. Nineteen traders received N1 million each; 25 traders received N500,000 each; other categories received cash ranging from N250,000, N100,000 to N30,000 each, depending on the sizes of their businesses, the jobs they created and the capacity to off-set loans. He explained that the loan/grant with refundable period of four years was meant to resuscitate businesses and livelihoods destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgents in communities in Gwoza. In Biu and Gwoza where similar disbursements were made few weeks back, Zulum emphasized in Gamboru, that any beneficiary that is able to repay 50 percent of his or her loans within that record time would enjoy waiver of the balance of 50 percent, while those who deliberately fail to repay within the deadline would be made to repay 100 percent of what they received as loans and grants. Aside disbursing N150million to traders, Zulum disbursed N193 million to vulnerable residents from different communities in Ngala LGA. A combined total of 48,700 residents received cash and variety of food items during the governor's humanitarian trip. Thirty thousand female residents received N5, 000 cash and a wrapper each; 4,372 male residents received N10,000 cash each, while 14,328 male residents, each received a bag of rice, a bag of maize and a bag of beans.