Yuletide in the IDP camps
It is customary at the yuletide season for people to consider the fate of the less privileged and try to help them to also experience the joy of the season. This year, and in spite of the biting economic situation in the country, many Nigerians have tried to adhere to this noble tradition. However, one set of people that require our serious thoughts and prayers this season is the hundreds of thousands of our fellow country men and women and children in the Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps scattered all over the country but most especially in the Northeast of the country. These are people that have been affected the most by the Boko Haram madness; have lost parents, children, or loved ones in the conflict and have themselves been lucky or forced to flee the madness and found supposed refuge in the IDP camps set up in various parts of the country. But alas, the so-called refuge has turned into a huge prison where they are being starved to death and prevented from leaving. Quite characteristically, the government has continued to deny this sad reality and has continued to restrict access to the camps to journalists and investigators to ascertain the true situation in these camps and offer help where necessary.
In July this year, a report by the Geneva-based Medicins Sans Frontieres revealed that about six malnourished children die daily in the IDP camps in Bama, Borno state alone. This is sequel to repeated news from the foreign media that thousands of IDPs in over 20 camps around Maiduguri were starving to death because food and relief materials allocated to the camps are either diverted or stolen by government and or camp officials. The UK Guardian of Tuesday 13 September, 2016 reported protests by angry camp residents over the stealing of food meant for the residents while they are left to starve to death. The best feeding ration any IDP camp got was once a day. The paper quoted a camp resident thus: “In the night they load up vehicles with food and take it away to their houses…But I can’t complain. [A local official] said that if I complain he will tell soldiers that I am a member of Boko Haram and they will kill me.”
Meanwhile, Refugee International (RI), in its April Report titled “Nigeria’s Displaced Women & Girls: Humanitarian Community at Odds, Boko Haram’s Survivors Forsaken”, detailed the gory realities confronting the IDPs under the nose of Nigerian government officials including rape and sexual exploitation of women and girls, who in most cases, have to submit to the demands of the officials, soldiers and policemen for sex to be able to eat and possibly feed their children or family members.
Similarly, On October 31, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report detailing how government officials (camp officials, vigilante groups, policemen and soldiers) systematically raped and sexually exploited women and girls displaced by the Boko Haram conflict and how the government offers little or no protection to these hapless group and does nothing to stop the abuse not to talk of sanctioning the abusers.
The government feigned ignorance of these incidences and promised half-heartedly to investigate the reports. Nothing has come out of it.
Recently, the United Nations, tired of talking to a non-caring Nigerian government began to appeal to the world to act urgently to save millions of people, especially women and children starving at the various IDP camps in the Northeast. Sadly, Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari came out earlier this month to say reports by local and international humanitarian agencies detailing the high level of deprivation in the war-ravaged north-east Nigeria were exaggerated. He said the United Nations and other private humanitarian groups are deliberately hyping the level of the crisis for financial gains.
But just after making those remarks, the Senate investigated the disbursement of funds under the Presidential Initiative in the North East (PINE) and indicted the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir Lawal over the diversion of the humanitarian funds. The Senate took the unprecedented step, at plenary, to call for the removal and prosecution of the SGF after the Adhoc committee set up by the Senate to investigate the humanitarian crisis in the Northeast discovered that government personnel took liberty with the funds awarding dubious contract to themselves and their families and cronies while residents of the camps starve to death. The SGF specifically was found to have awarded contracts to his company, Global Vision Engineering Limited, including a ridiculous consultancy contract to clear invasive plant specie for N200 million.
The Buhari administration is however yet to act on the Senate recommendation but has tightened security at the camps to prevent journalists, foreign humanitarian agencies and investigators from accessing the camps. Local journalists who have disguised as aid workers to visit the camps report tales of starvation and hopelessness in the camps.
As we urge Nigerians to specially remember these people abandoned by their own government to die and prevented from receiving help from international sources during this season of joy, we urge them to ramp up the pressure on their various governments to prioritise the welfare of those at these IDP camps. That will be the best yuletide gifts we could give to these unfortunate fellow citizens.