Muhammad Ndume, representing Borno South at the National Assembly, on Tuesday announced plans to relocate Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Gwoza living in camps in Lagos, Abuja and Maiduguri back home. Ndume made the announcement while addressing journalists in Maiduguri.
He said the IDPs would be evacuated to transit camps pending when they would be able to go back to their homes. “I am a serious advocate of dismantling the IDPs camps and I am working on that. “We plan to create transit camps in various localities to move our IDPs from Gwoza,” Mr. Ndume said.
He said that keeping IDPs camps for long was counter-productive. “In the history of the IDP camps worldwide, once you insist on keeping the camps, then you are creating a permanent den for criminality and laziness. “The IDPs have been there for three years; I always tell them continue to stay there if that is the life you want to live,” Mr. Ndume said. The lawmaker said he had held talks with Gwoza IDPs in Lagos and Abuja toward finalising the arrangement to evacuate them. “We are moving all IDPs from the FCT back home to Gwoza, they have agreed to go back to transit camps in Gwoza and Pulka. “So, from there people can go see their destroyed houses and try to fix them and go back.
“I met with 29 various groups in the IDP camps in FCT and I am going to Lagos to tell them we are closing the camps. “The people have agreed that once government gives them little support to go back they will go back,’’ he said. Mr. Ndume said the FCT Emergency Management Authority and National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) had also agreed to provide support for the movement.
“We are talking with the FCT Emergency Management Authority and NEMA they have all agreed to help,” he said. Mr. Ndume said the newly -appointed Gwoza Local Government Area caretaker chairman will inaugurate his council in Gwoza in a few days time. “We are making arrangement to go back home, the local government caretaker chairman will inaugurate his council in Gwoza. “The council will move to Gwoza, if the council moves to Gwoza anybody staying elsewhere is on his own,” he said. Mr. Ndume said the Emir of Gwoza, Muhammad Timta, had also agreed to relocate to Gwoza. “The Emir is going back to Gwoza any moment from now,” he said.
(NAN)
