Northeast: Nigeria To Address Humanitarian Crises Of 8 Million Victims Of Insurgency

The Nigerian government has announced measures to meet the humanitarian needs of eight million Boko Haram insurgency victims in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states.

Dr. Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, made the disclosure during a visit to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State.

She stated that the federal government, led by President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is ready to assist the humanitarian needs of eight million Boko Haram insurgents in Borno, Adamawa, and the Yobe States.

The Minister also stated that around 15.7 million vulnerable Nigerian households, totaling 62 million people, are currently on the federal government’s social register and that the federal government’s goal is to treble this figure.

Edu, who was at the Muna Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Maiduguri, said that to ensure that victims of the insurgency do not fall into poverty, her entourage, which included the ministry’s management team and humanitarian partners, visited the IDPs camp, which included a rehabilitation center for rescued Chibok Schoolgirls and repentant insurgents with family members at Bulumkutu.

She said: “We were there to see persons who are in need and how we can liaise with the state government, local government, humanitarian partners and even persons in the communities to ensure that we reach out to them.

“The President is not playing games with poverty eradication, he is not mincing words about it. His target is to pull millions of Nigerians out of poverty by the year 2030. That is why we are out on the field, and we will continue to be in the field until we reach the last person in this country.

“We are going to come back here with more durable solutions beginning with micro-size and medium-size enterprises among other things. We will be bringing solutions including shelters, livelihood programmes, and reintegrating them into society so that they can run their day-to-day lives and be able to fend for their families. Gone are the days that we are offering them only fish, we want to teach them how to cash fish,” the Minister said.

At the Government House Maiduguri where she and her entourage paid a courtesy visit to the state Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, the minister informed him that she was in the state to see things on the ground, noting that the visit was her first official outing since assumption of office.

She added that she has visited to see how the ministry can support the state to intervene in addressing the needs of the victims of insurgency.

The governor while welcoming her to the state, assured her that the state government would collaborate with her to address the challenges facing vulnerable citizens of the state.

At the Bulumkutu rehabilitation centre, she distributed bags of grains and jerricans of groundnut oil to the households there. She also paid homage to the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai Elkanemi who assured her of the emirate support to ensure that her programmes in the state are successful.