Abuja – The Adamawa State Government has urged the Victims Support Fund (VSF) and international donor agencies to intervene in the rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and in areas affected by insurgency in the state.
Alhaji Ahmad Sajoh, the state Commissioner for Information, made the call on Wednesday in Abuja while answering questions at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum.
NAN reports that the Victims Support Fund committee was inaugurated by former President Goodluck Jonathan to take care of victims of terrorism and violence across the country.
“We are calling on the VSF to begin to deploy resources to support the victims now before the next rainy season; because our lives are like a circle; we are subsistence farmers; we are pastoralists.
“If nothing is done to rehabilitate certain infrastructure before the rainy season, then the people that returned will find themselves in more difficulties.
“We are also liaising with the security forces so that the “hit and run’’ processes are controlled because the “hit and run’’ processes are also very terrible.
“Everything has returned to normal but the losses have not been recovered. We are waiting for the Victims Support Fund, for reconstructions.
“We are waiting for support to our government too because what people don’t realise is that we have very scarce resources; we inherited difficult conditions and yet we are using those scarce resource in difficult conditions to maintain the IDPs,’’ the commissioner said.
Sajoh said that the insurgency disconnected 90 per cent of people of the state and villages from their formal economy and were devastated, making them refugees in their own country.
He said the state government had been supporting the military personnel by working in synergy with them and other state security forces, to ensure that peace and security returned to the affected areas.
“We are rebuilding their business places, the markets, schools and hospitals, which is the much we can do under these circumstances; we cannot go beyond that because we cannot provide houses to the people.
“That should be the role of the Victims Support Fund (VSF); the fund is supposed to come in to support the people because our resources are limited; we have the social infrastructure first to maintain.
“We have our responsibility first and foremost to restore back social infrastructure in those places and we are doing it,’’ Sajoh stated.
The commissioner recalled that Gov, Muhammadu Jibrilla of Adamawa, had visited the IDPs severally and had taken it as a personal commitment to solve their problems.
He said: “One of the major challenges we face is that Mubi is the commercial nerve centre of the state; so, when Mubi fell into the hands of Boko Haram, we have universities, federal polytechnics, College of Health Technology, general hospitals and several other government facilities — all of them were destroyed.
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“The two of the biggest oldest secondary schools and cattle markets being one of the largest in Nigeria located in Mubi, were destroyed; so, we want to restore social infrastructure there.’’
According to him, apart from the state-owned programmes, the Federal Government also has specific programmes for the seven local government affected by the insurgency.
He said: “The beginning of it is that Federal Government has just given us 400 tricycles popularly called “Carry Go“ that it is not essentially for passengers but can be used to carry goods.
“The 400 tricycles are to be distributed specifically to people who are affected in the seven local governments; we have done that successfully and there are other programmes coming up.’’
Sajoh said the state government had conducted a proper study and compiled a document that has all the destruction in all the local government areas.
He said the document comprised of the destruction in other sectors including education, agriculture, markets and to a large extent, places of worships, noting that most churches were also burnt.
“We even had a situation where there were destruction in the grave yards; so, we have a document that has all of these and we are going to use it religiously,’’ the commissioner said.
He said the document would ensure that possible support would be channelled to the right persons.
“Specifically, we want to close all our IDPs camps; whatever that can assist us in closing down all the camps we are interested in that,’’ Sajoh said. (NAN)