The Director General of FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Alhaji Idriss Abbas, has said that “those living in New Kuchingoro and other settlements across the FCT are not internally displaced persons (IDPs)”.
He stated this Friday during an exclusive chat with Blueprint Weekend in his office, revealing that “the people who call themselves IDPs are just Nigerians seeking greener pastures faraway from their homes, but cannot be said to be IDPs; as there is no IDPs camp in the FCT”.
He added that there are over thirty settlements within the FCT, but that many of the dwellers resort to blackmailing government by readily referring to themselves as IDPs and alleging that they have been abandoned by government “even when many of their children, especially those in New Kuchingoro, have been enrolled in schools, medical care provided for them with 24-hour security to boot”.
He said: “We don’t have IDPs here in Abuja. When we have IDPs was at the onset of Boko Haram cataclysm, but we have since relocated them to their respective states. Those parading themselves as IDPs are just people living in different settlements across the FCT and hoping for greener pasture, but they are not IDPs. We can’t chase them away, because they’re first and foremost Nigerians. In fact, we have actually been doing our best for them.
“Government has provided 24/7 security them in New Kuchingoro. We have enrolled many of their children in school and provided medical care for them, especially pregnant women. Therefore, it is cheap blackmail and ingratitude on their part to say that government has abandoned them. In a nutshell, they are not IDPs. But since they have refused to return to their respect villages, despite peace being restored in different parts of the Northeast, we still cater for them.”
