Boko Haram IDPs Protests Food Shortage In Adamawa

By Ibrahim Abdul’Aziz

Some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in two designated IDPs camps in Adamawa state, North east Nigeria have stormed the state capital, Yola, on Wednesday to protest stoppage of food supply to them by Federal Government for nearly four months.

The IDPs who took their protest to newsmen at the Mahmud Ribadu Square in Jimeta, said they had not received supplies from National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the federal government agency charged with supplying their food, in the last four months.

The IDPs representatives who traveled to Yola from their camps in Fufore, said there were over 1,000 affected displaced persons in the camp .

The spokesman of the protesting IDPs, Umar Bakura, said, “For the past four months, we have not received any food from NEMA. Among us are children, elderly people and orphans.

“President Muhammadu Buhari should intervene; he should evacuate us back to our respective local government areas in Borno State,” Umar pleaded.

He explained that he and other leaders of the IDPs had complained severally to NEMA but got no result, and therefore begged higher authorities for intervention.

Umar had earlier explained that the IDPs in Fufore mostly Borno indigenes were forced from their ancestral homes by Boko Haram insurgents.

When contacted on phone, the Acting Operational Officer of NEMA for Adamawa and Taraba states, Mr Midala Anuhu, said NEMA supplied food to the camp in December (2019).

“We have forwarded their case to our headquarters in Abuja and we are still waiting for the approval,” he said, assuring that supply would be made soon as approval is received.