The acting chairman of Chikun local government, Hon. Talama Saku Riga, has lamented the high number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the council due to insecurity. He called for measures to be taken to prevent conflict. Addressing a community engagement with security agencies to “Build Partnership, Ensure Effective Oversight and Accountability of the Security Institution,” organised by Global Peace Development, in collaboration with International Alert and funded by UKaid, Hon. Saku Riga, who was represented by director, Education and Social Development, Mrs. Rose Marcus, said creating awareness and mobilising to prevent conflict, sexual and gender based violence is critical.”Security is a big challenge we have in Chikun local government. Most of our people are no longer in their houses, we have lots of them as IDPs, though we don’t have IDP camps, they are living with other families and we have so many families that cannot use their farmland to grow their crops because of insecurity. Some of them can’t go back to harvest their farm produce. We are creating awareness on how to approach the police and the need for the community to work with the police in preventing conflict and sexual and gender based violence. We have gathered women, religious leaders and stakeholders in the society.”Also speaking, the village head of Juji, Malam Ibrahim Abubakar, spoke about the challenge of insecurity in the area.He said, “Insecurity is a challenge that affects all of us. This programme is very important to our people and it should be made more frequent, maybe every three or four months because it would help in addressing insecurity. This programme will help us to get the trust of the people. We need to come together and help ourselves.”
We’ve lots of IDPs without camp in Chikun – Council chair
