Recently, the governor of Borno State said over 51,000 persons are now orphans, has IDPs phenomenon become a permanent feature of our life? Are these people not going to be relocated? If yes, when?
The internal displacement crisis in Nigeria is taking a turn for the worse, with each day, every second and hour that this government either acts slowly or those who are responsible pretend or continue to pretend that nothing is happening. And I must add that ignoring it will not make the issue go away. This seems to be our attitude towards the internal displacement crisis, and nobody does that in the world.
At some point in time, we were competing with Syria and Iraq. If you look at the internal displacement matrix that is reviewed consistently by the international organisation for migration in league with NEMA, you will see that at some point in time, we were second on the world map after Syria, then we came after Iraq. That is where we are, we are either second or third because with the recovery of territories, more IDPs come out with our large percentage of refugees in neighbouring Cameroun, Chad and Niger Republics, and our inability to resettle them like you said, or to address our plight become clearly manifest. While other countries are doing their own, that has remained our underbelly as a country that has lost its focus.
Let me make it abundantly clear that according to the constitution of Nigeria like other ground norms elsewhere, the security of lives and property of citizens is vested in the state. Since the federal government is in charge of those agencies of coercion- law enforcement agencies- it has the army, the police and other paramilitary, it is the responsibility of the federal government to defend the lives and properties of citizens. But this is no more the case. Secondly, it is a pity, like the governor of Borno state has said the state has over 51,000 orphans. This is just an official position, may be, affecting only Borno state alone.
Frankly speaking, the state has been allowed to fail because 70 percent of Borno’s territory is not under the control of Nigeria authority, and we shouldn’t have allowed that to happen. How can Nigeria with its name and level and advancement, allow a ragtag army to emerge and evolve to square up and actually defeat our own state actors. This had never been imagined or contemplated before now.
And why is it so?
I believe all these are happening because government has refused to benefit from global policy making process. By this, I mean there are countries in Africa, in West Africa, Cote d Ivoire, Niger, Sierra Leone and Liberia. I can also mention Uganda, I can also mention a far-flung country; Columbia. Each of these countries has a ministry dedicated to humanitarian affairs. Wherever you witness internal displacement or refuge crisis in such a magnitude, you just erect a ministry that formulates policy, a ministry that will review policy, a ministry that will be giving direction as to how to address those problems. Nigeria does not have this. Nigeria has only National Commission for Refugees, which is an abandoned agency, which does not even have laws that would enable it to act on Internally Displaced Persons and other persons of concerns.
What is the lawmakers’ intervention?
We are trying now to amend the law establishing the refugees’ commission, but that would not have the same effect like having a ministry as obtained in the countries I just stated. All those agencies would be under that ministry. But now, you have NEMA (National Emergency Agency) which is another player in the humanitarian field reporting to the Office of the Vice President, you have the Refugees Commission reporting to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and then you have the PCNI reporting also to the Office of Vice President, somehow.
You also have the Victims Support Fund reporting to nobody. And they tell you that our funds were generated by private people. Even today, I learnt they distributed goats and women in Yobe state and that is celebrated.
But to be frank with you, what is required in stabilising that part of Nigeria is reconstruction and redevelopment beyond giving out goats, to ensure speedy and immediate resettlement of the IDPs and refugee population either in their own ancestral lands, or in the host communities where they are already assimilated or better still, in other areas where you have fertile land, and where they can be resettled with dignity and security. These are approaches to settlement according to the law of internal displacement and refugees.
How soon are you getting that done?
I cannot say, even the executive driving the process can’t say so. There is actually a reality but no roadmap anywhere. What we have is a collection of essays and some sophistry put in place by people in the name of proposals. This is what some agencies are going about with, mistaking their own assignments as feeding the IDPs and clothing them when actually they are not doing anything close to that.
That’s why I say the executive arm of government will do well by borrowing from those countries that are serious in erecting the mechanisms which are required to respond to such calamities and emergencies.
The House and Senate have are not agreed on power devolution in the proposed constitutional amendments. Are you contemplating a meeting point on this sensitive matter?
No, we have and we have always had. Even though the National Assembly is bicameral, each can take a decision independent of another. But when it comes to constitutional amendment there is always a nexus. Once one of the Houses shoots down a proposal, even if the other upholds it, it is dead on arrival. So the one that would be transmitted to the state Houses of Assemblies is the one upheld.
So power devolution is out of it?
Yes. I give you a typical example which is INEC conducting local government elections in states which some of us wanted. But even if we had voted for it in the House of Reps, it has been shot down in Senate, it is not going to fly. Also, devolution is dead on arrival and not going to fly. I can tell you why devolution died on arrival. It is because, at some point, what I understood, some people who served on the committee thought they were wiser than others, integrated land use act and subdued it under devolution of power. We the lawmakers from the northern part of the country feel there is a need for land use act because it protects the land.
I give you an example. Those who are canvassing for land use act are people who do not have enough land in their place. They are also the same politicians asking for resource control. It now means someone from another part of Nigeria can come to another part of Nigeria, buy off a land where there are stones and gems, mount a quarry, and because that place belongs to him, if he is lucky he can even get petrol, gas and that become his own. And we said no, since we cannot go to Delta and buy land where there are oil wells or quarry, we need to protect our own.
