“There is another crisis beyond insurgents and IDP issues”

By Gbenga Osinaike

Enoch Yohanna was about to conclude his first degree in Statistics in 2014 when he got a call from his home state. Boko Haram had killed his people. His father, some of his cousins and his uncle were mowed in one single day.

The news shattered him. He went home to stay with his mother and his other siblings but had to return back to Abuja to meet one of his benefactors. It was while in Abuja he discovered that some of the people who had been displaced in his village back in Borno were in the New Kuchingoro IDP camp in Abuja. The IDP camp has about 1600 people.

Betty Abah, executive director Cee Hope who visited the camp recently had described the place in a Facebook post as thriving “in the most inhuman conditions (no functional health centre, self-built ‘houses’ not fit for even animal in a decent society, the available water is commercialised, privately built school underfunded).”

So Yohanna had no reason to be in the camp in the first place because he had the opportunity of better accommodation in Abuja. But he had to identify with his people because of the appalling condition on the camp. Rather than stay aloof, he volunteered to go help them.

He sought to do his youth service with a non-governmental agency and from there had the opportunity of working on the camp to offer relevant assistance.

Yohanna was at the Journalists’ for Christ’s Abuja media roundtable on the report, “managing internal displacement crisis in Nigeria”. The event took place on August 20.

The report was sponsored by the World Association for Christian Communications and Waldensian Church’s Otto Per Mille (OPM), Italy. The idea of the project was to enhance global best practices in guaranteeing the rights of IDPs through the Media.

Yohanna said in the course of his work with the IDPs, he had the opportunity of meeting the German Chancellor when she visited Nigeria.

The chancellor had requested that he come over to Germany. But by the time he began processing his travels, he met a brick wall. He had no passport. The process of getting a passport was taking a bit of time. He was however presented with an option of facilitating a fully funded clinic for the IDP or for him to pursue his German trip. “I opted for the clinic because I knew that would benefit the people. That was how a clinic was constructed on the camp.” He said.

Yohanna whose mother is a nurse by profession while his late father also worked in the orthopaedic department of the General Hospital in Borno said he has helped in taking delivery of 57 pregnant women in the camp clinic between 2014 and 2018 when the clinic was rundown. The clinic, which was established by an NGO that gets funding from the German government was equipped with laboratory equipment where basic medical tests could be conducted. But there is a paucity of workforce in the clinic. The facilities have been overstretched.

Earlier he had helped to train some of the people at the camp in soap making to enhance their economic wellbeing. He also encouraged some young ladies to do some trading so they could make some money. “But we have had to stop the girls from some of the hawking because some of them are being sexually harassed. Some people who come to visit them in the camp also take advantage of the girls in the camp.” He said.

Yohanna also runs a school in the camp. He said the present situation in the camp is pathetic. “The situation is bad. Now if you go, there is no single malaria drug in the camp clinic. The only assistance I can give is to make myself available to help in the little way I can.”

On support from people, he said, “People depend on handouts that are brought to them by sympathetic Nigerians. But right now there is no single vigilance group, no civil defence group to secure the place. The people are vulnerable to attack.”

Beyond the appalling living condition, Yohanna said at the Abuja meeting while speaking with Church Times that corruption is also rife in the camp.

“There was a time the wife of the Abba Kyari, the late Chief of Staff to President Buhari brought 200 bags of rice for the people in the IDP. After she left, the officials in charge distributed 80 bags and left with 120 bags.

“One of our challenges is that there are no media to report the progress or otherwise of what is going on in the camp. We have a school in the camp. An organization built the school. But the school is not being maintained.”

Lamenting the death of his father in the hands of Boko Haram, Yohanna said many people are being brainwashed to join Boko Haram. “They are told they are fighting for the cause of Islam. But by the time they join they find out it is not so. Some join because of fear of being killed. Some join because they want a means of livelihood.

“There are people that are also ready to join because the government is sponsoring ex-Boko Haram members. They found out that those who are in the IDP camp are not enjoying half of what ex-Boko Haram people are enjoying. So they reason that if they join and later declare that they are no longer interested in Boko Haram they will enjoy government palliatives.”

Beyond the displacement of people as a result of insurgents, Yohanna said the country will still have to face more crisis of ownership when insurgents are no more.

“Right now a lot of graduates are being displaced and their documents burnt. There will be a crisis after the Boko haram crisis. I have been mentioning this since 2016 during the world humanitarian day. The humanitarian agency should provide a form to document all the information about the people in the camp.

“The National identity management agency should capture the statistics of the people and relevant information about them. When there is peace, people may begin to fight over property. And the issue of people whose certificates have been burnt will resurface. There is no data base for the IDPs presently. NEMA does not have a data base.”

Drawing on his own experience, he said, “It is a project I would have loved to undertake because I studied statistics. But my concern now is to have a better life for the people in the camp. IDP camps should have accurate data. The IDP issue in Nigeria is full of propaganda. People in the three IDPs in Abuja don’t have access to loans for them to start a business. This is unfortunate.”

Yohanna who collaborates with some non-governmental agencies to help those in the camp commended Journalists for Christ International Outreach and their foreign sponsors for the IDP media project. He noted that the document produced by JFC and the media roundtable have afforded him and his colleagues the opportunity to air their views on the way IDPs are being run in the country and also learn how to manage the internal crisis in the IDPs.