PH
Abuja – The Federal and Borno State Governments have signed an agreement to strengthen the management of internally displaced persons’ (IDPs) camps in Maiduguri.
The development is expected to improve the welfare of displaced people in the state.
Representatives from National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), led by the agency’s Director, Search and Rescue, Air Commodore Charles Otegbade, and the Borno state team led by the deputy governor, Alhaji Zannah Mustapha, have signed the agreement at a meeting held at the Borno State Government House.
Otegbade, the NEMA teams were in the state to work out modalities which will better the lots of the displaced persons at the camps. He noted that the federal government was concerned about the wellbeing of the people at the camps and would want to be more involved than in the past.
He disclosed that NEMA had worked out modalities with the Borno government towards improving lives of the internally displaced persons at the camp scattered across the state capital Maiduguri.
“In the next two months we are going to be more involved in the management of the camps, we are going to contribute more than before. We anticipate that by the end of the two months we should be talking of getting the IDPs settled in their communities during which we are going to be thinking of what we will do in the reconstruction and rehabilitation,” he said.
The NEMA team leader said the situation is still the same and there was a need to continue to run the camps.
“We would continue to review our involvement towards improving the lives of IDPs. What we have agreed essentially is more like sharing responsibilities on how to continue to maintain the camps in a very hygienic manner.
“We have also agreed that NEMA would do as much as possible to provide items like rice, maize and other hard foodstuffs; while especially things that can easily be source from here would be provided by the state government,” Otegbade said.
Mustapha traced the latest action to the recent change in government at the federal level.
“NEMA has shown this kind of interest two or three years ago the situation would have been different and our people at the camps would have been better for it,” Mustapha said
