The Insurgency Appeal Fund, sponsored by the American University of Nigeria (AUN) and Adamawa Peace Initiative (API), received within the week as the Dangote Foundation redeemed its pledge N50 million
The university, in partnership with Adamawa Peace Initiative, had on October 6 in Lagos, launched a N150 million appeal fund to ameliorate the plight of victims of insurgency in Adamawa state.
Aliko Dangote, whom the Foundation is named after, had pledged to donate to assist Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and the launch was held at the same time with the 2015 Banking Sector Report and 20th anniversary of Afrinvest West Africa Limited.
Dr. Margee Ensign, the President of AUN and ahair of API, said the report of the N50 million donation from Dangote was conveyed to her via letter on October 15.
She disclosed that N35 million of the donation the donation would be given in kind like the distribution of rice, spaghetti, sugar, seasonings, salt, vegetable oil, and 5,000 blankets.
Ensign, whose address as keynote speaker at Afrinvest had harped on peace, development, reconstruction, as the way forward for northeast Nigeria, told the participants of the dire situation facing those displaced by the Boko Haram crisis.
“AUN-API have helped thousands of vulnerable Nigerian youth obtain education, develop valuable life skills, and nurture the fortitude to resist recruitment by Boko Haram, which has slain innocent children, women, and men, causing more than 1.5 million survivors to flee their homes.
“AUN-API, she continued, counts among its members prominent Muslims and Christians, traditional rulers, academic and business leaders, NGOs, and other members of the Yola community, and has the capacity and nimbleness to address the challenges in real time, given adequate access to aid money, food, and other supplies.
“With strong extended family bonding in the local culture, most displaced people now live with relatives rather than in refugee camps. For example, an estimated 405,000 IDPs fled to Yola, yet only 15,000 sheltered in refugee camps. The international aid community, however, is generally ill-equipped and inexperienced in dealing with refugees outside of camps or camp-like settings, people the AUN-API partnership has been able to reach.
“We know our community and we are in a unique position to bring diverse resources together to find and implement solutions to crises, prevent our youth from succumbing to the temptation to join extremist organizations, and bring stability to the region.
“Our collaborative model works, and we believe that governments, international NGOs, and other organisations working in regions of conflict should pre-identify local peace groups such as ours, and evaluate and use these local networks to implement assistance,” she told a Geneva meeting of the UN High Commission for Refugees in July this year. The generous gift from Dangote Foundation will be of enormous help.”
