Food crisis looms as Northeast farmers yet to access farm – Report

A draft report on human rights assessment says a major food crisis is imminent in the northeast as many farmers in Adamawa,  Borno and Yobe are still unable to get on their farms to either plant or harvest for the third year in a row. While presenting the Human Rights and Humanitarian Needs Rapid Assessment […]

A draft report on human rights assessment says a major food crisis is imminent in the northeast as many farmers in Adamawa,  Borno and Yobe are still unable to get on their farms to either plant or harvest for the third year in a row.

While presenting the Human Rights and Humanitarian Needs Rapid Assessment for the Six States of the North East by the National Human Rights Commission  (NHRC) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Abuja on Thursday, lead consultant on the report, Eze Onyekpere, said although there has been improvement on security in the Northeast with the liberation of some parts of the affected areas from the hold of the insurgents, few areas still constantly attacked by the insurgents have held back some displaced people from going back to their base and returning to the farms.

He said that they need to return back to their farms to and start planting and harvesting of foods to ensure the supply of foods in the region and country.

The assessment covered from 2015 to June 2017 and the report indicated that there were cases of massive gender-based sexual violations in the Northeast area as women were raped, forced into marriage against their will, sexual abused, girl-child rape hence the violators of such crimes ranged from the insurgents, members of the security forces and the civil populace who took advantage of the crisis to commit crimes.

Onyekpere lamented that justice was not properly meted out on the offenders of such crime while some families did not even have the resources to bring perpetrators to justice.

He also indicated that there were massive violations of the right of people’s personal liberty as people were detained beyond the constitutionally stipulated time frame and a good number of the detentions were not done in the legitimate pursuit of public order.

The report recommended that the Federal government should embark on improving the fighting capacity and equipment of the armed forces such as ammunitions, material for forensic investigations, vehicles, communication devices amongst others so as to ensure that the insurgents were not merely technically defeated but routed out completely.

The report also urged the government to consider the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission to enable all stakeholders such as the perpetrators, victims and survivors to openly discuss about the insurgency and how people can be encouraged to forget the past and live a normal life.

It also stressed that the Federal, State and Local government begin an emergency intervention on the welfare of all the Internally displaced person’s (IDPs) by duly recognising their existence in all camps ensure that all facilities to make life comfortable for them were provided.

Onyekpere also stressed that the Federal and State government establish trauma center’s to rehabilitate all the victims who have suffered psychological, emotional, physical, sociological trauma as a result of the insurgency.