Diversion of humanitarian services for IDPs

• House of Reps member calls for probe

By DAN GARBA, Yola

VICTIMS of the Boko Haram terrorism dislocated from their habitations have continued to suffer double tragedies at their various camps. First, they lost their homes, businesses or occupations, quite a huge economic loss; secondly, they have continued to suffer deprivation of humanitarian services by both government officials and NGOs who receive interventionist gifts and survives on their behalf. The current plight of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) shows that the Boko Haram insurgency has not ended but has covertly been continued government officials and organizers of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

This phenomenon has been exemplified in the diversion of food and other humanitarian items meant for the IDPs by coordinators of the various camps. Yet, government has not considered it important to arrest and prosecute these officials. Accordingly, as the controversy surrounding the disappearance of 70 trucks of grains allocated to Adamawa State by the Presidency lingers, stakeholders have called for thorough investigations to unravel the misery behind the disappearance.

The grains were sent to Adamawa State under the Presidential Initiative in the North Nast to cushion the hardship caused by the insurgency, but was not distributed to victims in most local government areas affected by the insurgency.

A member of the House of Representatives, representing Madagali and Michika Federal Constituency, Adama Kamale, has joined the league of stakeholders advocating for investigation and possible prosecution of anyone involved in the diversion of humanitarian items to IDPs. The lawmaker expressed worries over the ways these items are diverted into wrong hands.

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Kamale complained that Madagali and Michika local governments, being his constituency and most affected local governments by the insurgency did not receive single grain.
He said that as the representative of the people, he is authoritatively telling the nation, the world and the state that the people of Michika and Madagali did not benefit from the so-called distribution of relief grains.

He promised that when the House resumes from recess, he is going to sponsor a motion calling for full investigation into the matter.

More so, Amos John, a resident of Mubi, complained on same issue. “As far as we are concerned, the issue of the grain was a farce because we never received single grain, talk less of bags of grains. We are calling on federal government to probe the matter,” he said.

Asked to comment on whether some of his people collected the grains, he said that as far as they are concerned, they would have been aware about it, if anything was distributed.

It would be recalled that in June, the Office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) came to Adamawa State to flag-off the distributions of the grains allocated to the state.

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During the ceremony, the representative of SGF at the occasion, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Policy Development and Analysis, Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan Bapetel, announced that 40 trucks were on ground for distribution at that time, promising that the remaining would arrive later.

Stakeholders and beneficiaries who spoke to journalists in Yola at the weekend, frowned at the way the distribution of the commodities was carried out, regretted that the commodities were distributed to relatives of distributors instead of the generality of the people that the commodities were meant for.