APAAC: Delivering on its social responsibility to the IDPs

IBRAHIM RAMALAN writes on the recent visit by the Advertising Practitioners Association Abuja Chapter (APAAC), a professional advertising body under the auspices of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), to provide succor to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), in Durumi and New Kuchigoro.

Sequel to the incessant havoc being wrought by the Boko Haram insurgents in the north eastern part of the country, today, more than two million persons were internally displaced and scattered across the nooks and crannies of this country.
Some of these victims of this tragic circumstances are currently housed in government camps, some in their newly found homes in the forests, while others are left in a lurch to live a sub-human lives in shanties and vulnerable slums akin to that of the people of Rwanda during the historic genocide.
A visit to some of these camps would reveal so appalling a picture of not so human friendly existence.
For instance, the living conditions of Durumi and New Kuchigoro IDPs camp, located at Durumi and Kaura districts of the Abuja Municipal Area Council of the FCT is so alarming because it is lacking in all the basic necessities of life. Human existence in these camps is so filthy that a simple outbreak of an epidemic could be so calamitous to the entire society.

In a rough estimate, the number of the IDPs in these two camps is more than 2,476 persons.
In the words of one of the leaders of the new Kuchigoro camp, Mr Marcus Buduwara, the government had not come to their aid in any form. He added that it has always taken the intervention of private individuals, corporate Organisations and religious bodies in providing relief materials.
Advertising Practitioners Association Abuja Chapter (APAAC), a Profesional body under the auspices of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), was no exception in these acts of venovalence to the IDPs when it visited the two camps recently to show solidarity.

Speaking on the motive of the visit, the representative of the Registerar General of APCON, Ahmed Yelwa, who is the Zonal Head of the Council, said that APCON in collaboration with APAAC felt that the two bodies are socially responsible to come and visit the IDPs in Abuja in order stretch it’s hands of brotherhood and solidarity.
He said: “We are all aware of what is going on in the north eastern part of this country as regards the activities of the insurgency and it’s resultant. As such, we feel that we supposed to equally come and see your condition and support you with some items of relief as part of our social responsibility. “
In the same vein, the representative of the Chairman of APAAC, Mr Chris Tion, who is the Coordinator of the donation project, lamented the condition in which these IDPs are left to live, as if they are not Nigerians.
“We understand that the government do not recognize these camps in Abuja that is why there is no organised help and assistance for them. It is this regard we feel that we should reach out to them and give a little relief that we can”, the coordinate said.

He therefore called on the government to hasten the relocation of these IDPs to the recognized camps or their communities.
In her remark, the officer of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mrs Chinwe Okpara, appreciated the kind gesture by advertising professionals for showing solidarity with the IDPs.
Responding to questions on whether the government has official numbers of the IDPs living in Abuja, Okpara said that the number is always liquid, saying: “You can’t just say this is the actual number now because each day they come in and each day their communities get liberated, off they go.
“However, government has given us the mandate through inter-agency committee on proliferation of IDPs in Abuja, which I am the Secretary, to come and profile all the IDPs in Abuja. At least by that time we would be able to know exactly how many they are.” She said.

On the government’s effort at relocating the IDPs in Abuja, the NEMA officer said that government is doing its best to ensure that they are relocated as soon as possible. She however regretted that in as much the government was trying to relocate them, it is important to note that government cannot force them to go back as several attempts at relocating some of them sometimes proved abortive.
“But if out of their own volition they come out and say ‘government I want to go back to my own community or to the government camps in the northeast, government is ever willing and ready to take them there because we have more that thirty established camps in the northeast where we intend to relocate them once they indicate interest.Moreover, the security within and outside these camps is guaranteed.” She said.

One of the IDPs living in Kuchigoro camp, Victoria Moses, 27, from Goza, while narrating her ordeal on how she escaped the Goza town to get herself in this camp, she said she had to spend seven days on the road begging to be transitted from one location to another until she got herself in this camp. “My mother is still in Goza now. I don’t know whether she is still alive or dead,” she submitted
To her, however, coming to this camp is also like running from prying pan into the fire because the both situations are that of hopelessness.
She said: “Here in this camp we always have to wait until people of kind heart bring in food before we could eat. Somebody would take breakfast by 11:00am and he doesn’t know whether he would have a launch or dinner. No good water and shelter is shattering. No work for me, no hope or future for all of us here “