Abuja’s unrecognized IDPs

In Abuja, the plight of the IDPs are not different from what obtains in other cities across the federation just that in Abuja the IDPs are left at their own mercies as government is yet to recognize their stay.The situation is compounded by the factor that all basic amenities needed for the survival of an […]

In Abuja, the plight of the IDPs are not different from what obtains in other cities across the federation just that in Abuja the IDPs are left at their own mercies as government is yet to recognize their stay.
The situation is compounded by the factor that all basic amenities needed for the survival of an individual is absent at their camp. The camp itself is term illegal as the land owner has issued them a quit notice.
The only source of water in the camp is a shallow stream which serves as source for water for drinking, bathing and cooking. At the stream, young minds are bound to be corrupted as young men smoke weed without any form of restrain, bath openly just as women.
As the elderly in the camp are busy thinking of what to do next or how to relocate with their children, the kids in the camp numbering over 200 are seen in various open space in the camp playing not knowing the threats their parents are been subjected to.
One Alhaji  Usman Adamu, who identified himself as the deputy chairman of the refugees in the Camp noted that they migrated from Gwoza local government of Borno state that was captured by the insurgents since last year. According to him: “We have spent nine months here in the camp, we have a total number of 224 children here in the camp and they are all here with their parents except for one ot two cases who couldn’t locate their parents. Some of the challenges that the children face here is sickness mostly malaria, cold, running stomach and fever. We don’t have water here in the camp, our only source of water is from a stream and that is the water we use for drinking and other domestic works, the stream is a flowing stream and we use it for cooking and taking our bath. Although the Central bank of Nigeria brought two tanks for us promising that that they will be bringing us drinking water but since they brought the tanks they have not brought any water to us.”  
The camp which serve as home to over 1000 adults have only four toilets.
Although the vice chairman denied any knowledge of incident of child molestation, harassment, rape or any sort of things that obtains in other camps sources who preferred not to be mentioned said that some parents let loose their female children on young men and residents of adjoining settlement to make ends meet.
“If you have money everything is possible for you in this camp. The young girls are easily sway by those who have money to give so as to have sex with them. What can their parents do? Some are even happy that their girls are able to go out and come back with money which they use for feeding. Don’t forget these have no body looking after them, and government have not done anything for them for the over nine months that they are staying here,” the source told Weekly Trust.
Looking at the piteous situation of the kids a non-governmental organization established a school where the children report on daily basis to be taught. A teacher in the school said that because of their long stay out of school, the children were been taught from the basis, so you find a ten old boy in a kindergarten section of the open three roof only school.
Rebecca Zacharia  Zango is the Head Mistress of the school known to the inhabitants of the camp as “School without walls” . “Am paid a salary of N20,000 per month, am an NCE holder but teaching this children is not very easy because most of them don’t understand English language so if you are a teacher in this school and you don’t understand Hausa it will be very difficult for you to operate , there are some instances that we have to explain certain things in the language they understand which is Hausa language. What we are teaching them now is the nursery school curriculum and we are also teaching them kindergarten that is beginners, those are the scheme we are using for them for now until    they begin to catch up before we move them to primary scheme we hope to move to primary scheme by next term, We actually started the school with play class before we started the nursery school in September last year. The school has been in existence since January 2014 and we are doing our best the help the children to acquire knowledge.”  
Mr Simon Agene, one of the Pastors visiting and attending to the daily needs of the IDPs, “I must commend the effort of this NGO because the children are small and are not easy to control. The teachers come from outside the camp to teach the children and the children don’t pay anything like school fees because the person who set up the school is the one paying the teachers”.
Mrs Sarah Joseph, the woman leader in camp said that: “I have eight children I loss two of them am left with six now and all the six are here in the camp with me, the children are all attending the school in the camp here except for the one who is in JSS 1 and since there is no secondary school here in the camp and we don’t have money to send him to secondary school, he has to stay at home and play with other children in the camp.”
“Another challenge I have is with one of my child who is suffering from sickle cell anemia and when his crisis starts we don’t know what to do since there is no medical facility in the camp, we just pray and believe in God for his help.  During cold season when the sickle cell crisis begins we will just be helpless , when we were in our home in Gwoza we use to have some drug which we use to take care of the ailment and hospital was very close to us  but here in the camp there are no drugs and no help is coming from anywhere so we are calling  on well-meaning Nigerians to come to our aid in this camp and provide us with drugs because these drugs are very expensive and we cannot afford it and as a mother when I see my child in this condition and I cannot help him I usually felt very sad  but there is nothing I can  do just to sit and wait for death  to come,” Sarah added.
Another woman in the camp, Mrs Mary Job, said she have six children here in the camp: “What I have to say is that we have been greatly affected by the terrorist attacks in our village , am from Gwoza in Borno state and up till now  we have not recovered from the shock we experienced as am talking to you now I have six children and one of them is suffering from a strange illness, he is having hearing and speech difficulty and another illness that made him looked like an old person even though he is just fourteen year old. As for feeding we are getting help from people and other NGOs but in the area of drugs and health care we only depend on God for help and divine healing for our children.”
“We are really in dare need of help in this camp, one of my son by name Luka is presently down with pneumonia and whenever the weather is cold he will be having severe cough and complains of headaches and feverish feeling so we need the good people of Nigeria to come to our aid and help us survive this predicament,” Mrs Job added.