Borno Government to Build Heroes Estate for Slain Soldiers, Paramilitary & Vigilantes

Governor Kashim Shettima

The Borno State Government said on Saturday that it planned to build Borno Heroes Estate for the families of soldiers, paramilitary and members of vigilantes who died in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency in the state.

Governor Kashim Shettima stated this at the inauguration of the 432 housing units at the Yerwa Peace Estate, Maiduguri.

He said that the objective was to assist families of slain soldiers and others who died in the cause of restoring peace to the state.

“We are going to build an estate like this which we shall call ‘Borno Heroes Estate’. Houses in the planned estate will, after thorough considerations be allocated to families of soldiers, policemen, paramilitary men and the civilian JTF found to be in need of shelter and desirous of living in Maiduguri,” Shettima said.

He added that government would share the houses to the affected families, irrespective of states of origin.

“We will not care about the fact that some of our fallen heroes in the military and other security agencies were employees of the Federal Government. We will not bother about their states of origin, after all they served and died for Borno.”

The governor said that the only parameter would be that a family must be willing to settle in the state.

“Once a family is in need and wants to live in Maiduguri, it should be entitled so long as its bread winner fought and died for the state. We will, however, place emphasis on those that went to battle fronts, died and left behind children and other helpless dependents.”

He added that the estate would have a primary and secondary school for orphans left behind by Borno heroes to enable them have access to free and quality education because their fathers made the highest sacrifice for the state.

Shettima said that the foundation for the erection of the estate would be laid in the next couple of days.

“It is my wish to lay the foundation of the project in the next couple of weeks so that we accord the project the same commitment that we gave this estate about to commission. It is also my wish to have the estate commissioned on Oct.1 2015, when our dear country will be marking its 55 Independence anniversary.”

Shettima said that the Yerwa Peace State was built for allocation to residents of Bulabulim Ngarnam, whose houses were destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgents in 2010.

He said that the 432 apartments were built at a cost of N790 million by a committee set up by the government.