Given the living condition of Internally Displaced Person’s (IDPS’s) in the North East, there is an indication that about 66 percent of camp officials, 28 percent from host communities and 6 percent of elders are sexually molesting the vulnerable ones, a situational
Assessment survey on IDP’s in North-East conducted by NOI Polls has revealed.
NOIPolls, incorporated in 2007 has been in the forefront of championing public opinion research in Nigeria and across the West African sub-region in technical partnership with Gallup (USA).
Among startling revelations from the report is that some of the female IDPs voluntarily offer camp officials sex for food and for freedom of movement within and outside the camps just as others offer themselves for basic female sanitary requirements.
The major aim of the survey was to highlight the controversies surrounding the general welfare of IDP’s in the North-East. It was conducted between July 4th to July 29th, 2016 where a total of 400 contacts attempted the questions.
A breakdown of the report indicated that 190 respondents were drawn from Borno, 128 in Adamawa and 82 in Yobe states.
The respondents were aged between 18 years and above while the face-to-face survey technique enabled NOIPolls to capture the reality of the IDPs.
According to the findings, “Though the provision of firewood is the responsibility of local government areas and State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) as stipulated in the Memorandum of
Understanding signed between federal government and state government, thousands of IDP’s including lactating mothers, children and elderly starve due to the absence of firewood.
The survey however revealed increase in social vices at the camps like drug abuse, consumption of illicit drugs, prostitution and petty crime as a result of the general poor welfare and deplorable living conditions of the IDPs.
“There are also rising cases of unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDs while some IDP’s had fallen prey to unscrupulous members of host communities who take advantage of their plight to force them into early marriages and even kidnap them for child labour”, the report added.
The report highlighted that 85 percent of IDPs in Adamawa and 84 percent in Yobe are facing incidences of discrimination compared to 76 percent in Borno which was linked to ethnic problems that had existed between the northern and southern Borno natives.
Presenting the survey, the Chief Executive Officer of NOIPolls, Dr Bell Ihua confirmed that only 10 to 20 percent of IDP’s lived in camps while 80 to 90 percent lived in host communities stressing that petty crimes and drug abuse were also on the increase at the camps.
Ihua regretted the rising cases of mortality, which he said that 88 percent IDP’s died on daily basis as was witnessed during the survey adding that there was a cholera outbreak in the camps.
He requested for unannounced presidential visit by Muhammadu Buhari to Maiduguri as a way of boosting the morals of security agencies fighting insurgency in the area even as he advocated for increased funding for the IDP’s.
Also speaking, the Chairman of Civil Society Organisation Network, Borno state, Amb Ahmed Shehu expressed worry over the increasing cases of prostitution at the camps which may result to HIV/ AIDS and other infectious diseases.
“In camps and host communities, women need cash-based assistance to establish livelihoods such as tailoring, processing and selling flour or groundnut oil, milk and among others”, he said.
On his part, the Director of Forefront Media, Mr Mohammed Alfa who is a native of Gwoza called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) to visit Borno state and access the financial impropriety of Borno government towards the starving IDP’s
