ABUJA, Federal Republic of Nigeria. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), on Tuesday, disclosed that over 1.4 million Nigerians were currently in the custody of the agency, at its various Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps, located in the three states of the North-East of Adamawa, Borno and Gombe with Borno State having the highest figures.
The Director General of the Agency, Alhaji Muhammad Sani-Sidi, who disclosed this in Abuja, while fielding questions from news men, also distanced NEMA from the various IDPs Camps in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, saying that they were operating illegally.
Sani-Sidi pointed out that the inmates of the NEMA approved IDPs camps comprised those displaced by natural disaster and due to insurgency in the North-East, with those displaced through the insurgency representing about 90 per cent.
According to the NEMA boss, “we established camps in all the states that were affected. We have established camps in Gombe, Adamawa, Borno. These are states of the North-East. Yobe State government did not encourage the establishment of any IDP camp in the state; rather the problems of IDPs were being addressed through Community oriented efforts.
On the existing IDPs camps in Abuja, the DG insisted that they were not known to the government and advised those concerned to follow due process for the agency to know what to do officially.
Said he,” you hear some people saying they come from Goza, Borno state; I believe you know the distance from Goza to Abuja. They did not stop anywhere in any state in the North-East, only to come to Abuja; the most expensive city to be IDPs.”
Speaking on the IDPs and NEMA’s activities in the face of insurgency, he stated that out of the 275 persons who were freed from Boko Haram by the military, 63 children came to the IDP camps unaccompanied by their parents, adding that most of those rescued by the military from the sect were undergoing deradicalisation programme.
While applauding the military in their efforts to end the insurgency, the DG pointed out that in the last two months, the military had recorded a lot of successes in tackling insurgency in the North East, stressing that most displaced persons were now returning to their communities.
The NEMA boss, who hailed the recent meeting between President Muhammadu Buhari and his Chadian and Nigerien counterparts over the menace of insurgency, noted that the base of the insurgency in Sambisa had been dismantled by the military and that the insurgents were now in disarray.
Sani-Sidi listed lack of proper coordination, lack of adequate funding of the state emergency management agencies, lack of capability in those agencies and lack of cooperation among the various disaster management agencies as the challenges facing the agency.
Credit: Tribune (Nigeria)
