‘FCTA ready to receive IDPs’

Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has said that it had hastened up arrangements to receive and camp no fewer than 8,828 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from neigbouring Nasarawa and Kogi states.
Director-General, Federal Capital Territory Emergency Management Agency (FCT-EMA), Abbas G.
Idriss, stated this recently after a stakeholders’ meeting on the camping of the IDPs, in Abuja.
Idriss, who further said the displacement of persons was informed by communal clashes between the Ebira people of Kogi and Bassa people of Nasarawa states in four communities, added that the FCT became involved because the IDPs were taking refuge in Kwali and Abaji area councils of the FCT; “hence the imperative to properly camp, feed and secure them.” He disclosed that a suitable accommodation had been found at the Senior Secondary School (a boarding school) in Dangara, Kwali area council where only the IDPs would be sheltered for the one-month camping throughout September, since the school was on vacation.
Chairman of the camping Committee also said “as soon as the two state governments are done with their peace efforts and camping arrangements, we will move them to their original places of abode.” Speaking earlier, the Operations Coordinator, International Emergency and Aids Initiative, Engr.
Daniel B. Gambo, said the “right thing to be done, internationally is not to repatriate IDPs from one camp to another camp.” He also said the IDPs, who are predominantly farmers, would also be taught ways of preserving farm produce, basic health tips, and sensitisation on skills acquisition, environmental hazards and sanitation, among others.