Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State on Saturday flew N65m in cash to Rann, headquarters of Kala-Balge, Nigeria’s remotest local government area, located in central part of the state, for critical humanitarian needs.
The visit was Zulum’s fifth of similar humanitarian trip to Kala-Balge since he assumed office in May 2019.
Rann, headquarters of Kala-Balge, has been cut off from the rest of Borno due to a flooded road arising from a dam discharged in Central Africa, trapping Nigerians there and denying them access to their farms, which are equally flooded.
Villagers mostly buy food supplies from a border village in neighbouring Cameroon Republic, for livelihoods.
Zulum, during Saturday’s trip, supervised the N65million cash distribution to families of 8,000 widows and some vulnerable residents in Rann to enable them buy food and other basic needs from the Cameroonian border village.
Each family (household) in the community was given between N5,000 and N10,000 cash because there is no banking service in Rann.
5,000 male householders received N10,000 each, while 3,000 of their female counterparts received N5,000 and 10k bag of rice each.
Zulum was in Rann on June 9 and December 8, 2019, and returned in February and June 2020.
In all visits, the Governor supervised the distribution of food and non-food aid to residents, many of them in critical humanitarian needs.