‘We want to go home,’ IDPs cry out

THE atmosphere was frenetic as the convoy of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, made way to the nondescript camp housing the over 400 distraught victims who ran away for dear lives following the activities of Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.

It was a temporary succor, which recently came the way of the hundreds of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) scattered in various camps in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), when Dogara led some members of the Green Chamber to visit the Wasa camp in Abuja to donate relief materials.

But Hassan Ahmadu, a displaced victim, said: “We want to go home. I cannot wait to return home. We are waiting for government to restore security in the area. We want to go home, even though we have been receiving help from many organisations. We look forward to going home because we are not comfortable here.”

Ahmadu, who in August 2015 took refuge in the camp along with his two wives and six children told The Guardian on arrival at the camp that he and his family are prepared to return to his village in Goza Local Government Area of Borno as soon as normalcy is restored in the area by military authorities.

“There are no toilet facilities, no water enough for the population here, no money to seek emergency medical attention for our wives and the children when they fall sick, and our kids are not in school in the camp,” he told The Guardian in despair.

Notwithstanding, the Speaker who is in the vanguard of the campaign to rally support for the IDPs across the country, arrived the camp accompanied by his colleagues in the House and announced a donation of 250 bags of rice, 550 bags of maize, 600 bags of millet, 200 cartons of Indomie noodles, 80 bags of sugar, 250 bags of beans, 100 bags of table salt, 100 jerry cans of vegetable oil, 700 units of Super Print wax and 700 units of brocade material.

The assorted food items and clothing materials, the Speaker said, will be shared among the four camps located within Abuja.
The gesture, according to Dogara, is to underscore the commitment of the House of Representatives to provide respite to the victims and put smiles on the faces of the IDPs. “We cannot sleep over your plights in the camps. I know the situation already. I come from the zone and my own life is a testimony to the kind of devastation that we have witnessed in that place. This has strengthened my resolve to ensure that we provide succour to the IDPs; but far better than that, to ensure that we rebuild that zone.