When Zulum stopped at a village market to buy peanuts

It was a Sunday morning, and we were returning from one of the communities designated for resettlement when Governor Babagana Umara Zulum halted his convoy to buy groundnuts from an elderly woman by the roadside at a village market.

I was in the convoy of the Governor, as usual, and I watched through the side mirror of the car I was travelling in, from a distance. I was wondering why the Governor ordered the convoy to stop. Then I thought, maybe it is the normal interaction with security personnel stationed at a nearby military formation or a routine inspection at a health facility across the road.

As his media aide, in such moments, my curiosity takes charge to capture the Governor’s move. So, I instructed the driver of the car I was in to reverse so that I could get a closer shot. As I got closer, I found it wasn’t what I thought. But one of those Zulum’s unusual approaches.

That stop was significant for one clear reason: the community was entirely deserted a few years ago. Insurgents had forced everyone to flee. Homes were destroyed, and the market had shut down.

Kaka Fanna (not her real name), the woman who sold peanuts to the Governor, might have been living in one of those camps on handouts, but now, she is back in her home, earning a living with dignity.

Today, that same village, once a shadow of itself, is bustling. Farmers display their farm produce. Women run small stalls, and life has returned to normal. The groundnuts the Governor bought, most likely, came from their harvests.

This transformation is part of Governor Zulum’s resettlement programme. Since 2019, the Borno State Government has assisted over two million displaced people to return to their ancestral homes.

Thousands of families who fled to Niger, Chad, and the Republic of Cameroon have been repatriated and resettled. The State Government also closed several IDP camps after resettling thousands of households.

This stopover further underscores Governor Babagana Umara Zulum’s humility and commitment to his people.

Abdurrahman Ahmed Bundi is a Senior Technical Assistant to Zulum on Print and Digital Communications