Nigeria’s federal government on Thursday disclosed that it was planning to build five resettlement centres for refugees in different parts of the country.
Already, the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCRMIDP) has begun the construction of five resettlement cities for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country.
Government also put the population of refugees in the country at 3.2 million while only 84, 803 have so far been registered with only 17,334 ready to return home.
The NCRMIDP Federal Commissioner, Hajia Imaan Suleiman-Ibrahim, made this known to newsmen at Abuja, while featuring on the weekly ministerial briefing organised by the Presidential Media Team.
According to her, the pilot cities of the resettlement centres are being located in Borno, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Nasarawa and Edo states.
“When displacements happen, flood, communal clashes, people lose their homes and means of livelihood. So, we started a pilot phase of our project resettlement in 2020. The project resettlement city will entail building small cities because Persons of Concern (PoCs) have three options of doable solutions.
“They can either locally integrate, resettle or they can go back to their homes but sometimes they are unable to go back home and that is why there is need for building of new communities or strengthening the capacity of their host communities.
“We are in the third phase of our resettlement city project but the pilot phase is in Borno, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Nasarawa and Edo States. Most of them are now at between 70-90 percent completion but that of Edo State is about to take off,” she said.
The Federal Commissioner added that as part of its solutions, the Commission would proceed to address issue of hunger as well as implement sundry empowerment programmes for the displaced persons, even as as they imbibe new forms of livelihood.
According to her: “When displacements happen within Nigeria we are not the first responders. So, we are expected to come in after they are stable to be able to provide them with doable solutions so that they can go back to normalcy.”
Suleiman-Ibrahim who noted the recent adoption of the National IDP Policy in 2021 by the Federal Executive Council, described the decision as epic, saying, “that gives us the legal framework and clearly highlights everybody’s role including the IDPs and the host communities.
“We have been able to continue to strengthen the psycho-social support system for the Commission because people are displaced, they go through all kinds of trauma so, psycho-social support is key.
“We have begun the piloting phase for the transitional learning centers in some locations in Edo, Zamfara, Imo, Bauchi, Federal Capital Territory and Katsina. We’ve been able to give persons of concerns access to COVID-19 vaccines and also conduct medical outreaches in collaboration with the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency.
“With the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), we have been able to train 10, 000 PoCs in all areas of ICT skills. This is in line with their own vision to achieve 90 percent of literacy for the citizens of the Federal Republic off Nigeria.
“We have also introduced the project Zero-Hunger, which was conceived to address the growing challenge of food insecurity because when you are hungry, you become vulnerable and easily accessible to criminal minds.
“We also ensure that we give them targeted empowerment and capacity building trainings to make more self-sufficient and give them a new lease of life,” she further said.
Suleiman-Ibrahim also identified three major challenges faced by the Commission, to include security, rising number of refugees and funding.
Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja with agency report
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