IDPs say the Federal Government is sending them back to homes where Boko Haram could kill them, because of elections

Reuters reports that the government is sending internally displaced persons to unsafe areas ravaged by the insurgency, just so they can vote in the forthcoming elections.

“Pushing these people back just to make a point when the security situation remains tenuous, is a terrible idea,” one diplomat told Reuters.

Threat of starvation

Internally displaced persons who spoke to Reuters say they have been told that if they remain in the camps, they are going to be denied food and starved to death.

“They said, ‘If you refuse to return, you are on your own, the government will not help you anymore’,” said Hassan, who, like other returnees, asked to be identified by his first name for fear of reprisals, Reuters writes.

Return to an unsafe city

The report adds that in June, government officials told some 2,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in Bakasi camp in the cityof Maiduguri to go back to a town in the Guzamala region.

Guzamala is viewed by the United Nations and aid organisations as inaccessible, dangerous and hard to reach.

In early August, Boko Haram killed at least 19 people, and possibly as many as 63, in an attack on a village in Guzamala.

IDPs are wondering why they are being asked to return to a Guzamala that is unsafe.

“We were deceived,” Reuters quotes Modu, a returnee as saying. “There is nothing in Guzamala other than suffering.”

IDPs who were forced to return to Guzamala, found their town in ruins.

Many buildings were burned or collapsed, returnees told Reuters. There were so few houses that people took shelter in a school where rain had caved in the roof.

Pictures of the town seen by Reuters, showed shattered structures and blackened streets littered with burnt-out debris, the report reads.

Aid officials and Western diplomats told Reuters that the government’s return programme is geared towards elections.

'The government lied to us'

One soldier in Guzamala told Reuters on condition of anonymity that “the place was not ready for the survival of people because there is no food, water is scarce.

“It is not only Guzamala that is in terrible state, but the whole of northern Borno - Boko Haram ruined the place and they are still there. Ordinarily, IDPs are not supposed just want to make it look as if things are okay there.”

Another Guzamala returnee told Reuters that; “We expected the government to provide us with food, but nothing was done. It is better to return back to Maiduguri than to die of hunger. The government lied to us.”

Denial

Bashir Garga Idris, northeast Nigeria coordinator for the National Emergency Management Agency, denied that people were being coerced to return to Boko Haram’s bomb and bullets.

Idris also said he did not know about the reported threats because he was outside Nigeria at the time.

Four returnees who spoke with Reuters said government officials ordered them to Guzamala. Three said those officials threatened to cut off their aid if they refused to return.

Interviewees identified Sugun Mai Meleh, the commissioner of land and survey for Borno state, and Lawan Umara Zanna, the chairman for Guzamala, as the officials who made the threats.

They also said Borno State House of Assembly Speaker Abdulkarim Lawan was also present.

Lawan told Reuters that he was at the meeting returnees had described, but he was not aware of any forced returns and no threats were made. “That is not true,” he said.

The presidency wasn’t immediately available for comments when Pulse reached out.

Why elections?

Nigeria holds presidential, national assembly and governorship elections in February of 2019. Internally displaced persons won’t be able to vote until they return to neighborhoods where they registered to vote.

Borno is a stronghold for the governing APC and the State handed a chunk of its votes to candidate Buhari in 2015.

Boko Haram has killed more than 50,000 people and displaced millions more since it commenced its war with the Nigerian state in 2009.