Govt welcomes support on rehabilitation

A GROUP of diplomats yesterday rose from a meeting with the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, with a strong commitment to impress upon their home countries to assist Nigeria with modalities that will ensure smooth resettlement of Internally-Displaced Persons (IDPs).

The United States (U.S.) Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle and Head of Delegation of the European Union (EU), Mr. Michael Arrion, while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, confirmed that they used the opportunity of the meeting to compare notes with Osinbajo and his team.

According to Erstwhile: “We have come in a group today to meet with the Vice President and his team just to compare notes as friends on the situation in the North-East.

“We want to make sure we understand each other on the scope and the size of the humanitarian challenge and how we can co-ordinate when the time comes for the IDPs to go home which we do think will, unfortunately, be some time away. We also discussed several upcoming workshops and conferences.

“But essentially, this is a group of diplomats that represent countries that stand ready to help and indeed are already helping the government with the humanitarian crisis in the region just to compare notes with the Vice President and we found that your government and all of our governments we think understand the scope of the job and today’s meeting will really help us to do everything we can to alleviate the whole of the human suffering going on in the North-East.”

Meanwhile, Vice President Osinbajo has described as heart-warming the offer of support from the ambassadors from several nations who are based in the country regarding the rehabilitation programmes of the Buhari Presidency for the North-East region.

A statement from his media office in Abuja quoted him as saying at the meeting that the Federal Government appreciated their gesture.

Arrion said the meeting also looked at to what extent the international community could support the Nigerian government to respond to the humanitarian crises.

He said: “I think that the main message that we agreed upon with the government was certainly that we need a comprehensive and global response. It is not only a security crisis, it is not only political, not only a development or humanitarian crisis, but it is all of that.

“So, to this global crisis, we need a global response and we have just reassured His Excellency, the Vice President, that the international community was ready to support the government.”