Again: UN hammers Nigeria, releases another damning report

THE United Nations has again released another damning report on Nigeria as crisis continue to ravage the country by the sad disclosure of the total number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria on account of insurgency only stands at 2,093,030.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Angele Dikongue- Atangana, the latest Displacement tracking Matrix reports in April this year indicted that Benue state alone has a high number of IDPs which was106,074 while the latest reports of August indicted a reduced number of 30,000 IDPs.
Dikongue- Atangana who made the disclosure during the handing-over and commissioning of Daudu Shelter Project for Internally Displaced Persons in Guma Local Government Area of the state, expressed gratitude to the decline number of IDPs in the state saying, it clearly shows the concerted efforts and concerned on the part of Benue State Government and stakeholders in responding to the trend.
“Taking an average of monthly displacement from April to August 2016, outside of the North East of Nigeria, Benue has the highest numbers of IDPs in Nigeria. 12 out of 23 LGAs in the state had suffered or are suffering from varying impacts of displacement,’’ she stated.
According to her, available records indicted that from 2013 to August 2016, Benue have experienced at least 60-65 militant herdsmen attacks, a development she described as quite alarming, saying, within 2016 Agatu LGA recorded an estimated number of 220-330 deaths from these attacks.
The High Commissioner explained that one of the cardinal objective of providing these shelters is to introduced agro and aqua skills acquisition and practices that will strengthen livelihood support within the shelter setting so that they will live a meaningful life when reintegrated back into the society.
Commissioning the Shelter project jointly with the UNHCR the Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom expressed the government’s readiness to continue to partner UNHCR and entire UN system in Nigeria towards actualising their dream.
Ortom who was represented by his deputy Eng Benson Abounu revealed that current empirical information on the losses in food, human lives and property of IDPs and affected communities appears quite challenging to figure out.
He said, “But beyond that, the state government wishes to see the UN system assist her in building institutional data gathering and management systems for their collective vision for a new Benue.
“Shelter remains at the core of the basic needs of man, and to lose one is really an affront on one’s dignity and self-esteem’’.
He said that the government had activated discussions to factor the IDPs within the social investment scheme, especially the component on cash vouchering for indigent ones.
While calling on the Federal Government to consider including Benue on the list of presidential and humanitarian interventions in the North-East, the governor said this has become necessary in view of the relationship of the crises in Benue and that of the North-East, which are all insurgency related.