Life seems to be picking up in Buniyadi town, a major commercial area along the Damaturu-Biu road in Yobe State northeast Nigeria.
This normalcy is due to the re-opening of the trade route which had been under the control of the Boko Har
am militants for almost three years.
The Nigerian military removed all barriers put in place by the insurgents after recapturing the town.
With the commissioning of the road six days earlier by the military, the situation in the town changed rapidly from what used to be a ghost town to one bubbling with life as commercial activities have started picking up appreciably.
The residents who have been taken refuge across Damaturu, Maiduguri, Gombe among other major towns in the northeast have continued to return to their ancestral home to assess the level of damage done to the town.
As residents returned to the town, the presidential committee on the distribution of relief materials to the Internally Displaced Persons swiftly responded with the provision of food and non-food items with a view to providing succour to the returnees.
The returnees gathered in front of the Local Government secretariat to welcome the state and the federal government delegation who visited the town with the relief materials.
The representative of the Chief of Air Staff, Air Commodore Paul Dimfwina, while addressing the returnees, said that the presidential committee brought rice, vegetable oil, soap, clothes, footwear, mosquito coil and sugar to be shared to the returnees.
He noted that the relocation of the IDPs to their ancestral homes and the immediate intervention showed that Nigeria was winning the war on terrorism and laying a solid foundation for full relocation of the IDPs to their communities.
The Yobe State Governor, Ibrahim Gaidam, who was represented at the ceremony by his deputy, Abubakar Aliyu, appealed to the federal government to assist the state to effectively fund the return and resettlement of the returnees which is estimated at 14.3 billion Naira.
While thanking the Nigerian President for the release of the relief materials, he gave the assurance that the state distribution committee would ensure effective distribution of the items to the affected persons.
Some of the residents who spoke to Channels Television, expressed appreciation for the provision of food and non-food items to the community but called on government to consider the resuscitation of their power and water supply as well as health care facilities and schools destroyed by the insurgents.
They also pleaded for the provision of means of livelihoods as well as funds to help them reconstruct their destroyed homes.
Buniyadi has reportedly suffered more Boko Haram attacks than any local government area in Yobe State.
Apart from taking over the control of the area for nearly three years, Federal Government College Buniyadi and the College of Agriculture were both attacked at different times with not less than 80 lives lost.
Several security personnel and civilians were also killed during the reign of terror in the area.
