OLUROTIMI AJIBOWO
For many people who fled the attacks of Boko Haram in North-east Nigeria and others directly displaced by the activities of the new Nigerian affliction – Fulani Herdsmen, life revolves around survival to beat hunger, and ultimately death arising from malnutrition, ill-health, trauma and other factors. Their experiences across camps are similar.
Comfort sat on the urine-soaked mat, clutching to her four-year old daughter. It was the same hand with which she buried her first child, Godin. Godin had been down with typhoid fever but all Comfort could afford to give him was Paracetamol. Today, in her little makeshift shelter, they lie on a bug- infested mat; sick, looking skinny, weak and hungry.
She flashes back to three years ago when she and her two kids were well-fed and enjoyed the peaceful community of Auno, a village some kilometers east of Maiduguri, the Bornu State capital. The villagers had been warned of an imminent attack by Boko Haram, but they paid little heed; until one night when horror struck. After the dust settled the next day, Comfort and her two children and a few others who were lucky to escape the onslaught found themselves in a bush. That incident kick-started her journey to a nearby IDP camp to seek refuge. Today, she is left with her surviving daughter. Since her arrival, the family could barely feed on one meal per day, rarely two and never three.
Another displaced person from Marte, Mallam Abubakar Shuwa, aged 61, lamenting in yet another IDP camp, said, “It is unfortunate that as a father of four grown up female children, I don’t have control over any of them as they roam about the camp mingling with bad eggs (boys)”. He pointed out that two of the female children got pregnant in the process.
These narratives reflect and capture a mini part of the situation in most of Nigeria’s IDP camps where starvation, leading to malnutrition and death as well as rape, spread of infectious diseases, poor sanitation and hygiene have become the regular order of the day.
Internally Displaced Persons Camps are makeshift shelters provided for people who have been forced to leave their native homes. The camps help internally displaced persons to find temporary refuge till their homes are safe to return to. The roots of conflicts and displacement have long existed in Nigeria, but military and authoritarian regimes kept the underlying tensions in check. Since the transition to democratic rule in May 1999, the less authoritarian atmosphere seemed to allow greater expression. The causes of conflicts leading to these displacements can be summarized into five categories: ethnic rivalry, religious violence, land conflicts, conflicts related to the demarcation of administrative boundaries, and conflicts linked to oil production.
While tribal and boundary issues are usually localised between tribes and villages, the more recent trend of religious based violence has taken a dimension that is both worrisome and scary. They began to occur seriously in the North between the Muslims and the Christians and were initially related to the introduction of the Islamic legal system, Sharia, in several northern states. More recently it has taken the full form of a jihad with an ethnic dimension as well.
Naturally, the growing level of violent attacks in Northern Nigeria has unavoidably led to the increase in the number of displaced persons in Nigeria. Due to the siege laid by extremists in Northern Nigeria, it is at this time estimated that well over two million Nigerians are displaced and live in IDP camps in their own country.
There are varying statistics about the number of Nigerians living in IDP camps. As far back as 2015, the Displacement Tracking Index published in February of that year that 1,188,018 IDPs consisting of 149,357 households were identified in Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe states alone. In addition to this, another 47,276 IDPs consisting of 5,910 households were identified in Plateau, Nasarawa, Abuja, Kano and Kaduna states, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
In total, 1,235,294 IDPs were identified in Northern Nigeria while the highest number of IDPs was in Borno State with 672,714, followed by Adamawa State with 220,159 and Yobe State 135,810.
According to the report being assessed, the IDP population was composed of the following:
53 % women and 47% men.
56% of the total IDP population were children of which more than half were up to 5 years old, while 42% were adults.
92% of IDPs were displaced by the insurgency.
The majority of the current IDP population was displaced in 2014 (79%).
The IDPs come mainly from Borno (62%), Adamawa (18%) and Yobe (13%).
At the same time, there have been major casualties with disturbing figures. Boko Haram killed more people than ISIS, particularly in 2014. The Taliban which was rated as the deadliest group in 2013 was ranked third in 2014 despite killing over three thousand people in deadly terrorist attacks.
In 2014 only, 32,658 people were killed by Boko Haram compared to 18,111 in 2013. These extremists have taken responsibility for deadly attacks in Nigeria’s capital and northern parts; with Borno, Adamawa and Yobe as the hotbeds.
Th entry of Fulani Herdsmen into the fray has severely worsened the issue, significantly swelling the IDP numbers and exacerbating the crisis. When it began, the official explanation was that it was a conflict arising from the struggle for grazing routes. Today however, the sacking of entire villages across local governments in some states suggests there appears to be something more than grazing routes.
These attacks have led to massive and incessant displacement of people in several northern states. Today, the phenomenon is moving southwards. Aside government organized IDP camps, there are many IDP camps that are organized by people who escaped terrorist attacks while thousands migrated to peaceful parts of the country – South West Nigeria in particular.
What are the conditions in these IDP Camps? The pictures tell a part of the story: the poverty, hunger, squalor, lack of care and hopelessness. Beyond that, the other experiences are almost inhuman. Reports of rape are rife and several women, widowed by the crisis and also suffering loss of children are many times subjected to trading sex for food for themselves and their surviving children. This is in spite of efforts of the United Nations organs and other non-governmental organizations collaborating with the Government of Nigeria in order to ameliorate the conditions of IDPs and rehabilitate the victims.
There’s a wide gap between speech and commitment to the welfare, security and rehabilitation of IDPs from the Federal and State government authorities. For instance, poor sanitation exposes members of the camps to infectious diseases, poor medical facilities bring about unnecessary deaths due to lack of treatment, causing infectious bacteria, fungi and virus to grow and thrive. Women lack sanitary towels while poor feeding exposes the men, women and children to malnutrition. Imagine that everyday, new babies are born in such conditions!
Mallam Idrissa Usman Izge, an IDP from Gwoza Council Area, said, “ Many IDPs might have been infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases because we don’t have money to buy condom and the state government refused to provide us with such since we were camped here in Maiduguri.When one adds lack of facilities such as power, water, roads, etc., the plight of the victims can be adequately imagined.
What compounds the plight of IDPs is their inability to earn, having been cut off from their regular occupations. The impoverishment leads to lack of funds by which they would have been able to take better care of themselves. While women, as has been said, are sexually exploited, the youth resort to prostitution and crime. The population of old and new nursing mothers is alarming and several appeals have been made to previous and incumbent governments to ameliorate their condition. These have had little or no impact. Members of parliament representing different constituencies have slammed the Federal and State Government Authorities severally to no avail.
Not only that, there have been some recent discoveries by some journalists who released a video of an interview of about 48 women and girls that have suffered inhumane sexual abuses by soldiers in the camps who should have been protecting the IDPs. Some of these task force men who should have been securing the perimeters and ensuring safety to IDPs were secretly attacking the women sexually. The master policy used in these camps was that sex should go with food. The women in these conditions have no choice because these men use force to ensure they dance to their tune. Anytime reporters go to these camps, the women are given strong warnings that their response to any question related to how they are treated should be “we are fine” and not otherwise.
A 14-year-old girl, Falmata, one-time captive of Boko Haram shared her story of abuse by men of the Nigerian military. Falmata was raped simultaneously by two soldiers. In her words, “They did it one after the other. I’m not even sure those people knew each other,” she said. Some women also gave statements reporting the sexual abuses going on in their camps. They urged investigation of the soldiers who raped them when they were in Bama. They claimed their children died because there wasn’t enough food, unless they had sex with the soldiers.
In addition to the psychological trauma of these issues, including the loss of families, friends and properties, members of IDP camps still face security threats. In September 2015, the deadly terrorist group, Boko Haram in a suicide mission, attacked members of IDPs Camps in Madagali and Yola killing 12 persons. In one of the attacks, bombs were reported to have been detonated inside a tent at the IDP camp. The inadequacy of security at the IDP camps opens them to attacks from terrorists and armed robbers.
While security remains a major issue, the hopelessness is further compounded without any rehabilitation plan. Furthermore, there is no deadline in the horizon that they can see when there plight will come to an end. Thus, hosting IDPs in camps without solid rehabilitation plans makes them vulnerable to crime in a bid to survive. As a first step, members of IDP camps must be kept busy. This should be a psychological boost in the move towards rehabilitation to be followed by economic empowerment. That way, they will be helped to recover faster from the scourge of conflict.
Across IDP Camps, the most serious problem appears to be feeding. This is where everyone can lend a helping hand. Quite a number of faith based organisations as well as corporate organisations have risen to their assistance. However, given their numbers, these efforts fall very far below the needs. The hope is that this new understanding of their plight will spur more people to give.
A few months back, a Church in Lagos organised to send food and clothes to an IDP camp in the North. By the time the delegates saw the sheer mass of people, all their efforts looked like a drop in an ocean. Their report as they got back prompted a renewed round of giving. That is how severe the situation is and how acute and dire is the need.
One of them complained, “We appreciate those who come with human spirit, great talent and ideas that can transform the state of the IDPs. It is good to donate rice, cartons of noodles, blankets, mosquito coils but there are some things that can transform the lives of the IDPs permanently. It is so sad that the government has ignored us. We have problems of outbreaks of diseases and sicknesses and even hospitals suddenly withdrew subsidy used to treat IDPs. Next to that, we have a lot of students, and some structures have been put in place for the children to learn but no materials or teachers. In the case of child delivery, we have a generous woman who uses her little knowledge of traditional medicine to deliver babies. Despite the many health challenges, absence of hand glove, disinfectant, other anti-natal check up or treatment, unavailability of postnatal treatment, about 100 babies has been safely delivered.”
Today, IDP camps have become grounds for politicians to score cheap political popularity by visiting to donate scanty items while leaving out long term solutions. For others, unscrupulous politicians and civil servants, their plight has been exploited as business through diversion, over-invoicing or under-supplying. This is such a disgraceful act against humanity and also violates conventional conduct. Again, Nigeria’s failure to accommodate her own citizens in IDP camps puts to question the commitment of the government to take responsibility for the security and welfare of the people. It is high time the government got serious and take proactive measures to see to the end of these ill-treatment or we will build a generation of ‘bastards’ that are raised in hate who might grow to be an enemy of the state in future.
Today, the issue of Nigerians in IDP Camps has become a national tragedy and for as long as it lasts, it is also an indictment on every aspect of Godliness we profess, and as James wrote, spots in our feasts of charity (Jude 12). As individuals, believers, activists, civil servants, it is time for everyone to stand up and be counted.
Other sources: The Need for Urgent Intervention into the Plight of Nigeria’s IDPs by YNAIJA and Borno Food Crisis: Malnutrition, Prostitution Rocks IDP Camps by Vanguard Newspapers
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