‘You’re exploiting IDPs’… Shettima asks UNICEF to leave Borno

Kashim Shettima, Borno state governor, has accused UNICEF and some aids group in north-east of spending money meant for the victims of Boko Haram insurgency.

Telling the aid agencies “exploiting” the crisis to leave the region, Shettima told journalists in Maiduguri, the state’s capital, that only eight of 126 registered agencies in the state had “truly assisted” internally displaced persons (IDPs).

He listed the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Danish Refugee Council among the few organisations that were doing a good job.

UNICEF recently launched a campaign to raise N1 billion for those facing starvation in the region.

According to the organisation, over five million people in the crisis-torn region are starving, while 100,000 children are at risk of dying.

But President Muhammadu Buhari accused the UNICEF of exaggerating the crisis in the state in order to more funds.