Borno to close IDPs camps in May 2017

Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima has disclosed that the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in Maiduguri and satellite towns in the state would be closed down on May 29, next year.

The governor said this yesterday when the Ad-hoc Senate Committee on Humanitarian Crisis in northeast visited him at the Government House, Maiduguri

He noted that the current population of IDPs in Maiduguri host communities has hit 1.56 million, while the ones in satellite camps of Bama, Dikwa, Gwoza, Monguno, Baga, Konduga and Damboa are over 400, 000 displaced persons.

He told the committee members, led by Senator Shehu Sani, that government
placed priority on the reconstruction of communities destroyed by insurgents to facilitate the return of IDPs to their respective liberated towns and villages.

He said: “We have reconstructed Bama by 25 per cent. My target is to reach 50 per cent by the end of this year and 75 per cent by first quarter of 2017.

“I want to close down all IDPs camps latest May 29, 2017, because the IDPs camps are becoming a huge problem on their own.“If we allow the entrenchment of these IDPs camps, they are pregnant with loads of challenges of early child marriages, prostitution, drug abuse and gangsters.

“And we will be confronted with huge social challenges of an entitlement complex of people feeling that they are entitled to be catered for.”

The governor added: “So, in as much as we observe the Kampala Convention, we will not compel anybody to return to their communities. Our people, in spite of their poverty, still have some pride left in them. A lot of them will rather go back to their communities and eat guinea corn and millet than to eat your rice and chicken in the IDPs camps.”

“By December this year, we are taking back all the people of Kaga Local Government Area.” He said with time, Nigerians would appreciate the modest accomplishment of the state government and its 27 councils towards the resettlement of 1.96 million IDPs

(Guardian)