Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Refugee commission decries poor budgetary allocation for IDPs

By Matthew Ogune (Abuja) and Murtala Adewale (Kano)
27 November 2019   |   4:17 am
Commissioner of the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCMRI), Basheer Garba Mohammed, has lamented the paltry budgetary allocation for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the country.

• Yobe partners FG, donor agencies on resettlement of terrorism victims
• Identifies 400,000 out of school children

Commissioner of the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCMRI), Basheer Garba Mohammed, has lamented the paltry budgetary allocation for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the country.

He argued that the budget was grossly inadequate to meet the needs of the commission hence its desire to seek partnership with the Niger Delta Ministry to provide skills development, empowerment and to ensure that displaced persons were adequately resettled.

He stated this in Abuja when he led his Management Staff on a visit to the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, God’swill Akpabio.

Mohammed added that Nigeria was facing humanitarian challenges hence the commission was seeking partnership with relevant stakeholders to support all vulnerable Nigerians.

He lamented that there are about 2.2 million IDPs in the country with majority of them in the North East, adding that most of the 44,000 refugees’ were in Cross River and Akwa Ibom states in the Niger Delta Region.

Speaking, Akpabio noted that one of the major challenges confronting the Niger Delta region is the ecological impact of gas flaring, saying the Federal Government had not reinforced the relevant laws to stop gas flaring by Multinational Oil Companies operating in the region.

He said the ministry was committed to redirecting the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as an interventionist agency to its original mandate, adding that the ministry and NDDC would support the Commission to execute its humanitarian services and provide durable solutions to vulnerable Nigerians.

Besides, Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, has restated the state government’s readiness to resettle thousands of Boko Haram devastated communities already displaced from their ancestral homes.

He also disclosed that his administration has concluded plans to reintegrate 400,000 out-of-school children in the state into Tsangaya Model Schools for Quranic and Western Education.

0 Comments