Adeosun wants Islamic Development Bank to help rebuild north-east

Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, on Monday called on the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to support Nigeria in rebuilding the north-east, ravaged by Boko Haram.

She made the appeal in Abuja during the inauguration of the IDB country gateway office.

Adeosun said that Nigeria was striving towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and would welcome IDB’s support to achieve them.

“I call on the IDB Group to work with development partners in operationalising the recovery and peace-building assessment and implementation of the recently-constituted June 2016 Buhari plan for the revitalisation of the northeast,” she said.

“This entails addressing aspects of interventions relating to peace-building, stability and social cohesion.

“Also, to support critical productive infrastructure and service delivery and provide capacity-building and programme management support in national, state and local government institutions.’’

Adeosun enjoined the bank to scale up its concessional resources and increase its overall financing to Nigeria and other African member countries.

She said the new office would further enhance focus on implementation and decentralisation of activities for speedy completion of projects and better impact of development intervention.

Ahmad Ali, president of IDB, said that the bank would give Nigeria its utmost support in alignment with the nation’s development priorities.

He said the group and its development partners were inspired by the nation’s exemplary leadership and drive for national development, through good governance and zero tolerance for corruption.

“This determination would go a long way in fast tracking the implementation of development programmes in Nigeria,” Ali said.

“The IDB group considers the education sector and particularly bilingual education among its priority areas in Nigeria and a key tool to counter extremism.”

He said that the bank would also focus on health, agriculture, infrastructure, small and medium enterprises and regional integration.

He added that the establishment of the country gateway office would enable the group to be more service-centric and closer to the Nigerian clients in both public and private sectors.

IDB, a multilateral development financing institution, was established in Saudi Arabia in 1975. Nigeria became its 56th member country in 2005.