National Assembly shuns parley to review policy on IDPs

A stakeholders’ meeting convoked to review the National Policy on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) so as to better the lot of this unfortunate category of people was yesterday shunned by the relevant committees of the National Assembly.

The development becomes more worrisome against the backdrop that the absence of a workable legal framework was greatly impeding intervention efforts targeted at the affected people.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO), in a report, had raised the alarm that more than seven million people were at the mercy of famine and 500,000 children in dire need of urgent assistance in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states due to the devastating activities of the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East region of the country.

Surprisingly at the parley, organised by the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) to tinker with the draft which has been in the process of adoption since 2012, the chairman of the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Humanitarian Crisis, Shehu Sani and his counterpart at the House of Representatives Committee on IDPs, Sanni Zorro, were conspicuously absent with neither of them sending a representative.

The forum, however, urged government to fast-track the enactment of a national legislation that would ensure that “durable solutions are provided for survivors of crisis, such as rehabilitation and resettlement, in order to get them reintegrated into their communities.”

The Federal Commissioner, NCFRMI, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouk noted: “The lack of a coherent framework has drastically impeded our ability to assist displaced persons. Our efforts have remained largely insufficient in the face of the massive humanitarian challenges we have on our hands.”