UN releases breakdown of 2.2m refugees in Nigeria

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has released a breakdown of the 2,233,506 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across 10 states of Nigeria.

According to the UN refugee agency, between February and October 2015, the number of displaced persons in the North East and North Central regions of Nigeria rose from 1.2 million to 2.2 million.

This comes as the North East Development Commission Bill passed first reading at the Senate on Tuesday.

Sponsored by Ali Ndume, Senate leader, the bill seeks to rebuild infrastructure in the region, which has been worst hit by insurgency.

Also, in the N465.6 billion 2015 supplementary budget currently before the National Assembly, President Muhammadu Buhari had set aside N5 billion for Victim Support Funds, of which IDPs form a major part.

The report indicates that while 1,978,950 persons were displaced as a result of insurgency, 225,949 were displaced by community clashes, as against 28,607 displaced by natural disaster.

Statistics also indicate that 95 percent of displacements originated from Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, while 16,925 Nigerians who fled to Cameroon as a result of insurgency, have returned to the country as of November 15, 2015.

At the presentation of the Inter-Parliamentary Union/UNHCR Handbook for federal lawmakers in Abuja, Angele Dikongue-Atangana, the UNHCR representative for Nigeria and ECOWAS, expressed concern that “Nigeria faces immense humanitarian and protection challenges due the ongoing insurgency in the North East.”

The 136-page document provides guidelines to members of parliament on how best to address internal displacement.

Other documents released to BusinessDay by the agency showed that while Borno State, the epicentre of Boko Haram insurgency has 1,606,406 IDPs; 144,302 IDPs are in Yobe State, while 135,605 persons are displaced in Adamawa.

Others are: Plateau (91, 511); Bauchi (77, 276); Taraba (51, 605); Benue/Nassarawa (44, 901); Kaduna (42,247); Gombe (27, 025), and Niger (12, 628).

The document also reveals that 92 percent of IDPS live among host communities, while only 8 percent are located in official camps run by the government.

Yakubu Dogara, speaker, House of Representatives, called on President Buhari to transmit to the National Assembly the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (also known as Kampala Convention) for domestication, just as the director-general, National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS), expressed worry that the resources of host communities that opened their doors to over 2 million IDPs had been overstretched.

“We shall be left with no option than to introduce a bill to domesticate the Kampala Convention if the Executive is unable to transmit the required bill,” said Dogara.

Speaking further, Dikongue-Atangana said the conditions in IDP camps remain problematic, with lack of sufficient services, poor coordination, family separation, restrictions on freedom of movement and continued insecurity.

Last week, a suicide bomber killed at least seven people in an IDP camp in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

A female suicide bomber taken to the state capital alongside other displaced persons reportedly detonated the explosive.