Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State says he is exploring ways to reconstruct all the heritage sites destroyed by the Boko Haram jihadists.
Borno State is embroiled in a 16-year-long festering Islamist insurgency. The Boko Haram Islamic extremist group launched an insurgency in Northeast Nigeria in 2009 in an effort to establish their radical interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in the region.
Boko Haram means “western learning is forbidden.” At least 35,000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced due to the extremist violence concentrated in Borno State.
Many historic assets have been damaged by the violence. Some of these are the Sambisa Game Reserve, the Gwoza Hills, Rabeh’s Fort, among others.
The state government is now making efforts to reclaim these national monuments, some of which have become terrorist havens, and to rebuild them for posterity. According to Prof. Usman Tar, Borno State commissioner for information and internal security, Governor Zulum is “working very hard to recover those lost values, especially the physical ones.”
—Ezinwanne Onwuka reports for TruthNigeria from Abuja.
