I was an IDP for six months, says SGF

Babachir Lawal, secretary to the government of the federation, has revealed that he was internally displaced by Boko Haram for six months in 2014.

Lawal, who represented the president at the 21st Nigerian Economic Summit (NES) on Thursday, said he lost his home, farmland and cattle to insurgency in the northeast.

Speaking on economy and security, Lawal said “five local governments in the northern senatorial district (of Adamawa) were completely taken over by insurgents”.

“Two local government in the central senatorial district, mine and the next one on its way to Yola were completely taken over by insurgents. My house was the headquarters of one of the Amir or whatever they call themselves. So for six months, I was an internally displaced person.

“Within that period, four people, my younger and others were on admission at the hospital in Mubi, the next big town to my own, where there’s some presence of general hospital.

“When Boko Haram entered Mubi, all the people had to evacuate the hospital and run into the mountains no matter the degree of your sickness.”

He also spoke about his brother’s predicament, and the need to fix security and economic issues in the north-east.

“My younger brother whose children were in that hospital, was visiting; he had to evacuate. For two weeks, we didn’t know where they were, because they ran into the mountains.

“The telephones, the base stations had been blown by Boko Haram. In any case, the battery had run out of the telephones. We didn’t know whether they were eating or whether they were dead. We didn’t know where they were.

“The total number of cattle in my village (where) everybody was a livestock keeper was 385. When people had to run for their lives, the last thing they would think about is cow goats and chickens.

“When we eventually recovered our land our home, we didn’t know where those things were. We ran away in October, November, the harvest season. By the time we came back, we didn’t know where those things are.”

He argued that for the northeast, economy and security mean the same thing, so they must be fixed together.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), internally displaced persons in Nigeria, are in the excess of 2.1 million.