From victims to startups: Struggle to rebuild livelihoods in Northeast

First, they were unwilling victims of Boko Haram violence. Now, 179 young men in Yola are the pilot cases in the scramble to rebuild livelihoods in the reconstruction of the Northeast. Sale Hassan farmed in his village in Gujba until Boko Haram began flexing its muscle in Yobe. Displaced from his home, he moved to […]

First, they were unwilling victims of Boko Haram violence. Now, 179 young men in Yola are the pilot cases in the scramble to rebuild livelihoods in the reconstruction of the Northeast.

Sale Hassan farmed in his village in Gujba until Boko Haram began flexing its muscle in Yobe. Displaced from his home, he moved to Bauchi, and sojourned occasionally to Yadi Buni and Damaturu where he had family.

In September, he graduated top among young men learning a new profession of welding under a skills acquisition programme funded by the United Nations Development Programme.

“I will return to Yobe,” Hassan says. “I am ready to teach others Insha Allah.”

Al-Amin Chiroma started a diploma in public administration in 2006. The one-year course stretched until 2012 “because of ups and downs,” he recalls.

Eventually, he graduated in 2012 and was looking to start a degree programme before Boko Haram began shooting up his state of Borno.

“Because of insurgency, there was nothing to do,” he says. Beside Hassan, he went through a six-month course learning aluminum fabrication.

“This is going to help me sponsor my education,” he hopes. “We need to assist ourselves. We don’t need to be dependent on people to pay our school fees. That’s why we do this, so we can do things ourselves.”

The ability for men and women to return to sustainable livelihoods is crucial to rebuilding the Northeast.

“Today, they may just be 179 that are graduating, but they represent a lot of hope for others and communities they come from,” says Samuel Bwalya, country director for the UNDP in Nigeria.

The UNDP says the Northeast has been plagued by poverty even before Boko Haram; the insurgency only made it worse.

“Even before Boko Haram began its insurgency in the region more than eight years ago, communities were already vulnerable and struggling to survive,” says Bwalya.

 “Nearly seven out of ten people were living below the extreme poverty line, on less than $2 a day, and livelihood opportunities were severely limited.

“The insurgence just worsened the situation resulting in mass suffering among the people especially women and the youth. From our assessment, about 1.9 million people in the region, representing over 250,000 households are in urgent need of early recovery support, including shelter, food, livelihoods, social infrastructure, public security, among others. It is important to note that currently, over 80 percent of households affected by the insurgence spend more than they earn, and 30 percent of households are economically inactive.”

More than two million people in Borno alone have fled their homes, displaced within and outside the country, according to Ali Kaka, acting secretary of the ministry of reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement created in 2015.

At least 20,000 have been killed, 575 schools destroyed and more than 200 hospitals and health facilities devastated.

The state is working to reconstruct at least 14 local government areas categorized as “badly affected”. Its own livelihood scheme took in 90 candidates from the most-affected areas of Gwoza, Bama and Mobar for a six-month programme.

Adamawa has previously partnered with the Indian firm Simba to train young men in the use and repair of tricycles. Its latest collaboration with UNDP is putting to use its massive skills-acquisition complexes plunged into disuse for years.

The hope is to “give them skills so the menace of insurgency will stop,” says Ayuba Aliyu, a special adviser for the state’s Poverty Alleviation and Wealth Creation programme.

The training shored up a booming tricycle transport industry. Yellow three-wheelers dominate the streets of Northeast capitals as they rebuild – and each tricycle supports at least three young men and dependents.

“The main cause of insurgency in the Northeast is unemployment,” says Matthew Alao, conflict prevention and peace building analyst at UNDP.

“For you to get them back, you must empower them, which takes us to the issue of entrepreneurship.”

The programme targeted the “sharp ones” among internally displaced young men it thought could drive industries. But they were also the most vulnerable of their demographics. Most have only finished secondary school or dropped out. Other than being displaced, the only thing common to them is their ability to speak and understand some English.

“Those are the people that can easily be recruited, and those are our target,” explains Alao.

Hassan and Chiroma are among 575 young men and women taken out of their immediate localities to Jos for re-orientation and to Gombe for screening. Only four of them dropped out.

“That’s to tell you the real beneficiaries were targeted. If not, you will not have half of them,” says Alao.

The 575 are scattered across training centres in Yola, Kaduna and Maiduguri – and the UNDP provides them a monthly N26,000 allowance and is spending nearly $400 million to get them starter packs in their chosen profession.

Re-orientating the young men meant them undergoing psychological treatment and trauma counselling.

“Most are not radicalized, they are just victims of violence,” says Alao.

At the start of the programme in 2015, even a car engine report could send them scared and scattered. Even computers reminded them of past terrors.

They stood before screeners who had computers in front of them and “they didn’t speak, because we had a computer,” recalls Alao.

“We had to engage people to say, come on, talk, it is in your interest. You know what they said? ‘Those who traumatized us, those who punished us in the bush also had computers in front of them as you have now’. It wasn’t easy. When they narrated their stories, my colleagues were weeping. It was so sorrowful.”

Abiodun Adetula, an aluminum fabrication instructor, only met the young men after they had undergone decompression -and knew right away teaching them would be difficult.

“Anywhere you have up to 20 people, controlling them isn’t easy, let alone more than 100,” he says of how instructors dealt with their students.

“We advised them that if they didn’t give us their cooperation, we won’t achieve what we want to.”

Daniel Kaltiya studied aluminum fabrication under Adetula and plans on having a firm that will employ other young men in five years.

“People will come for my services, and I will pay people working under me to get something for themselves,” says Kaltiya.

He’s not new to starting a business. Before Boko Haram encroached on his home town of Mubi, he farmed a combined five hectares of beans and maize using hired labour.

“In life, you can’t go in one direction. I farm to feed my family, but there has to be something else.”

At 27, Dahiru Suleiman from Bama in Borno has found something else. He graduated in computer science from the University of Maiduguri and instead turned to tailoring to make a living before Boko Haram invaded his town.

“I know the problem with software, but nothing about hardware,” he says of his degree.

“In these six months, I know how to diagnose hardware problems. I want to go back to Maiduguri and establish my business.” His aging parents and younger siblings – his society – are counting on him.