Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, at the first meeting of the Presidential Committee on the Repatriation, Returns and Resettlement of Displaced Persons in the North-East, Nigeria, expressed the need for urgent resettlement of returnee displaced persons in the region. The vice president maintained that safe return of Nigerians displaced by the insurgency in the North-East from Cameroon, Niger and Chad will be treated as an emergency assignment of the government.
Vice President Osinbajo, therefore, enjoined members of the committee to be committed to the assignment with every sense of urgency. Osinbajo told the committee members that President Muhammadu Buhari planned a committee with wide representation in order to be inclusive, and to be able to deliver, taking to account all the issues.
According to Osinbajo, the committee deals “with this task as an emergency. We simply don’t have the time to get into too much bureaucracy so that we are able to deliver on all of the issues.”
The vice president emphasized that while the committee will work with existing frameworks in the management of the issues, ongoing efforts to facilitate the return of displaced persons to their communities must continue unhindered. “We should immediately do whatever it takes to commence the process of repatriating our people back home. Already there are several initiatives. We need to deal with all of that working as quickly as possible to achieve the terms of reference and of course, ensure that all other initiatives continue to run in the way that they are designed to run,” Osinbajo said.
Professor Osinbajo promised that the Federal and State governments will work in conjunction with other stakeholders to ensure a hitch-free repatriation exercise. He maintained: “there is no reason why we cannot return our citizens to their homes.”
Osinbajo, therefore, ordered the secretariat to commence work on constituting three technical working groups on the work plan, repatriation exercise and rehabilitation of repentant Boko Haram combatants. The committee will meet later to assess progress.
Participants at the meeting presided by Vice President Osinbajo include Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State, Governor Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State, Deputy Governor Idi Gubana of Yobe State, and Chief of Staff to the President, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, including members of the Federal Executive Council.
Others include the Ministers of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama; Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq; Defence, Maj. Gen. Bashir Magashi (rtd) and National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd). Others included the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor; Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba; Director-General, State Security Service, Yusuf Bichi; Chief of Defence Intelligence Agency, Maj. Gen. Samuel Adebayo; and the representative of the Director-General, National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Rufai Abubakar.
The representatives of the North-East Development Commission and the National Commission for Refugees, Migration and Internally Displaced Persons were also in attendance.
The Committee was inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari on February 2, 2022.