NAN-H-18
Camps
By Taiye Edeni/Lizzy Okoji
Abuja, July 9, 2017(NAN) The Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative (PCNI) says Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are still in camps because some of the communities they are supposed to return to are not safe.
Alhaji Tijjani Tumsah, the Vice Chairman of the Committee, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He said the committee would allow people to return to their communities “only when it has been certified safe for return’’ by security agencies and the state government.
Cue in audio (Tumsah on IDP camps)
“They have made efforts to construct buildings and restore homes of those people that were displaced earlier on.
“And they can only return when all those places are safe; the number of people returning to their communities is of course increasing.
“As we have more military successes, people now move back to their homes.
“We have to now continuously prepare to make sure that once they get back home, they are safe and they can resume their livelihood.
“Most of the people there are farmers and farming resumption requires that you are safe.
“When you go to the farm, a lot of these areas are still not safe for that to happen; so they continue to stay in camps.’’
Cue out audio
Tumsah said that the number of people returning to their communities was increasing in the areas where the military had recorded successes.
He said that the committee was considering an alternative solution to create a new resettlement in the areas that are secured as the way forward.
According to him, the delivery of items to IDPs camps is quite appreciable in spite the issue of some diversion from officials.
He said that delivery of goods and services was easier for the committee with those in the camps than people living amongst the host community.
The vice chairman, however, said that People in the IDP camps were guided by the convention that are available, unlike the people that are not under the care in the camps.
Tumsah, further said that Insurgency issue and displacement is a dynamic one and a community can only be certify safe by the military.
He said that the committee was a civilian component of the military that can only work and give interventions in the areas that are secured.
“By my estimation PCNI is the civilian component of military successes; so what happens is that the Boko Haram menace has been degraded to an extent that it is only doing those acts of terrorism and isolated attacks that make it harder for intervention to happen as you will want.
`The committee works in areas that have been certified secure by the military.
“Part of the government strategies is strictly a military affair; we engage in areas that are deemed to be secure and ready for intervention,“ he said. (NAN)
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Edited by Emmanuel Yashim