Govt to relocate IDPs back to their hometowns

dimeji akinloye

October 3, 2015 2:26 AM

He said that arrangements had been concluded for the building of IDPs camps in Bama, Monguno, Dikwa, Konduga and Damboa.

The Borno State Emergency Management Agency (BOSEMA) said it had concluded arrangements with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to relocate some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Maiduguri to their hometowns.

The Chairman of BOSEMA, Alhaji Ahmed Satomi disclosed this on Friday when he visited Alhaji Mohammed Kanar, the Zonal Coordinator, NEMA, in Maiduguri.

According to him, these IDPs locations will ease the relocation of the displaced persons from already overpopulated Maiduguri.

He said that the state government was ready to work with the Federal Government, particularly NEMA, to ensure that facilities like schools in Maiduguri, currently accommodating IDPs, were freed so as they could return to their former use.

Satomi said he was in NEMA office to seek areas of further assistance to the displaced persons, adding that the Federal Government, especially NEMA, has been of tremendous help to the state in the care of the victims of Boko Haram insurgency.

He restated the state government's commitment to get students back to school ``as soon as possible,'' hence the need to relocate the IDPs from some of the schools that were serving as camps for the displaced persons.

He, however, said that the return of all the IDPs in Maiduguri back to their hometowns would depend on the advice of the military, but insisted that some towns had already been cleared for displaced persons to move back.

The Northeast Zonal Coordinator of NEMA, Mohammed Kannar told the BOSEMA chairman that his agency remained committed "to returning the more than one million IDPs to their homes.

dimeji akinloye