Plans On IDP Camps’ Closure: We Can’t Continue To Look After People Who Are To Contribute To Nation Building - FG

Plans On IDP Camps’ Closure: We Can’t Continue To Look After People Who Are To Contribute To Nation Building - FG

October 14, 2021

 

The Federal Government on Wednesday said it was currently devising better ways to close down Internally Displaced Persons camps across the country.

It said this was because it initially did not expect IDPs in many of the camps to stay so long in the facilities, stressing that government could not continue to care for individuals who should contribute to nation building.

The government disclosed this through its National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons during the inauguration of the National Emergency Management Agency-NCFRMI collaborative focal team on IDPs in Abuja.

Speaking on some specific areas of collaboration between both agencies on the side-lines of the event, the Commissioner, NCFRMI, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, said, “It is especially in the area of managing the camps and IDPs.

“Initially we didn’t expect them (IDPs) to stay up till now and they tend to stay in the camps for years. So now we have to devise better ways of ensuring that we close down the camps.

“This is because we can’t continue to look after people who are to contribute to nation building. So we have to provide them the enabling environments and platforms to be able to key in and become producing members of the society.”

On the over 300,000 Nigerian refugees in Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic, Sulaiman-Ibrahim stated that the partnership between both agencies would also handle the issue.

 

“This collaboration will also help to address that, the issues of repatriation,” she stated.

On his part, the Director-General, NEMA, Mustapha Ahmed, said the development of the team was necessitated by the continuous humanitarian challenges ravaging Nigeria.