Let’s Integrate IDPs Into Host Communities – Dogara   

BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara, has canvassed the integration of internally displaced persons (IDPs), into neigbouring communities.

He said this has become necessary owing to the fact that structures needed to be put in place for them to return to their various homes in the North East have not been actualised.

Dogara noted that though the appropriate thing would be to return them to their communities, he however said that they cannot be left on their own because the war on terrorism has not totally been won, which puts their lives at risk in the hands of Boko Haram insurgents.

Speaking when he paid a visit to Karmajiji IDPs camp in Abuja, where he flagged off medical outreach for over 2000 people in the camp, Dogara also flayed government agencies for failing to play their roles in providing succor for the internally displaced persons and leaving them at the mercy of faith-based and non-governmental organisations.

According to him; “It is turning out to be a long stay, I don’t know how we will approach this, whether this act of intervention on the part of the NGOs and faith-based organisations will be enough, or whether government should look for other means by which we can integrate the IDPs themselves, as against rushing them back to their communities where they could be displaced again.

“So, that is the task that we all must set our minds to accomplish. We need to integrate them if we cannot send them back to their communities in the nearest possible time. That effort must be made by government, not even NGOs. NGOs and faith-based organisations can also support, but the government must stand up and be counted. 

“I have heard the desire expressed by the director of the camp, that you would love to return back home. Of course, that should be the goal of government as well, that wherever IDPs are, Nigerian citizens, in the FCT, in the South, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, that we quickly get them back home.

“But the truth is that it would be very difficult to do that before the war on terrorism is won. Only few days ago, someone told me that some of the IDPs that returned back to Bama were being forced out, or displaced again. For some of them, this may be the second or third displacement. If that were to be the case; it would be very unfortunate, for any of our brothers or sisters to be subjected to this row of bloodletting that would force them out of their communities.

“So, the responsibilities on the shoulders of government is to first of all make sure that the war is won, and our brothers and sisters can return back home in dignity and honor and with the kind of peace that we desire for them. But right now it is unfortunate that we have to manage; the way we are managing.”

Dogara expressed dismay at the appalling condition in which IDPs live in the camps even when they are in the FCT, saying that should not be the case in Nigeria, adding that as a government, they have to live up to their responsibilities to provide social services to brothers and sisters who are direly in need of them, especially victims of the on-going war on terrorism.

“It is a big surprise to me that here we do not have representatives of security agencies and other critical Stakeholders like NEMA, Refugees Commission, and so on, and so forth. Its these stakeholders that should normally take the responsibility of providing succor to our brothers and sisters: the IDPs. It is really unfortunate that they are not here, because this would have been an ample opportunity to see firsthand the very pitiable condition under which the IDPs are living, and through that formulate a channel of responses that will take care of their immediate needs,” the Speaker said.

The Speaker said that education is a tool for social changes and that there is no better tool than education, stressing that when the IDPs are excluded from education; it is like looking for further trouble in the future.

“So, we have to look for any means possible to ensure that additional classrooms are provided so that they may take advantage of the offerings as IDPs. If there is no school; then one has to be created as needed. Unfortunately that they have lived here for above three to four years as they said, and we have not been able to provide them with education. We also have to do everything possible to ensure that it is done in the immediate, he added.