Reps say FG has failed in its responsibilities to IDPs

The house of representatives has accused the federal government of failing in addressing the situation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the north-east.

The legislators said this in a document released in Abuja by its committee on IDPs, refugees and federal government initiatives on north-east region and signed by the chairman of the committee, Sani Zoro.

The representatives said FG’s support services are not getting to the IDPs and the agencies responsible for the IDPs have no capacity to provide the services.

The legislators say the FG has no “concurrent plans” to tackle the influs of IDPs following intensified onslaught against insurgents.

“For inexplicable reasons, too, the Federal Government has failed to embrace best global policy practices that would have helped significantly in attracting the buy-in and commitment of genuine donor organisations and members of the humanitarian cluster,” the reps said.

They decried what they described as the lack of transparency in getting food supplies to the IDPs that has led to crisis of malnutrition in the zone.

“Agencies charged with camp management have only proved their incompetence over the years while transparency in procurement procedures of the Presidential Initiative on North-East and the Victims Support Fund remain a ruse as they are observed in the breach,” they said.

“The situation has been aggravated further by the refusal of the Federal Government to adopt and operationalise the well-articulated national policy on internally displaced persons, developed and updated over the years.”

“The policy’s objective, among others, is to facilitate effective and efficient coordination of humanitarian response among  government agencies, local and international non-governmental organisations as well as relevant organs of the United Nations. “

“Regrettably, these and other failures have, over the years, multiplied and led to the current ‘free-for-all’ situation, in which large scale pillaging of food and non-food relief items, high infant mortality rates, gender-based violence, high birth rates in camps and forests, squalor, malnourishment, and humanitarian profiteering by unconscionable people and groups, are the prevailing narrative from the North-East region”.

The reps asked the FG to appoint a “responsible, conversant and committed Commissioner and Chief Executive for the National Commission for Refugees” to deliver the mandates specified in the Geneva convention and the additional protocol governing the treatment of refugees and internally displaced persons, other regional treaties and agreements to which Nigeria is a signatory to.