Nasarawa: Refugees With Neither Camps Nor Safe Haven

On Wednesday, November 30, 2011, the Executive Secretary of the Nasarawa State Emergency Management Agency (NASEMA), Ibrahim Abu, conveyed sacks of weevils and suspected fungi-infested grains to distribute at the RCM Primary School in Kaderko, where thousands had been staying after they were displaced from months of armed hostilities in the southern parts of the […]

On Wednesday, November 30, 2011, the Executive Secretary of the Nasarawa State Emergency Management Agency (NASEMA), Ibrahim Abu, conveyed sacks of weevils and suspected fungi-infested grains to distribute at the RCM Primary School in Kaderko, where thousands had been staying after they were displaced from months of armed hostilities in the southern parts of the state. The refugees rose in protest, rejecting the relief. They stayed put at the refugee camp, as those of Idadu, another refugee camp, in another part of the zone.

On Friday, February 3, this year, Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura visited the camps for the first time since he inherited them on assumption of office in May 2011. The displaced persons hailed the visit and welcomed him with songs and dances. But he ordered them out, announcing the official closure of the camps in what he said was to strengthen the government’s security measures. He said the continuous stay of displaced persons in the primary school as refugee camps was in itself, a threat to security of lives and property in the area. The refugees had to leave, although some, mostly women and their children, stayed behind, defying the governor’s orders.

Barely a week after he closed the camps against displaced persons and assuring them of security of lives and property, the returning refugees faced another armed attack in Shatse, a community just outside  Kadarko. Survivors of the attack who fled in different directions, reported that their village was attacked by over 50 armed men who stormed the place at 5:00 am, killing three women and a man. The eye-witnesses said one of the women was shot in the stomach and her intestines spilled.

“All of them were shot with guns when the attackers stormed the village”, one displaced person said.

Now, dozens of displaced persons from Shatse community are back at the primary school, using it as a refugee camp again.

“We have nowhere to run to,” one of the displaced persons there said.

Communities in Nasarawa-South, bordering Benue State, have suffered series of violent clashes stretching many years. Ethnic groups locked in the prolonged hostilities are Tiv, Fulani, Eggon, Migili, Agatu and Koro, cutting across communities of Antsa, Dooga, Dooshima, Kyaior, Angwaha, Angwar Yaara, and Shatse, as well as Rugan Alhaji Mai Mota, Rugan Kadir Adamu, Rugan Waziri and Rugan Kudu in Keana, Doma and Obi local government areas. But at the heart of these incessant violent clashes are Tiv peasants farmers and Fulani herders.

They have had years of friction, sometimes starting from neighbouring Benue villages and spilling into communities in Nasarawa, or starting from Nasarawa and spilling into Benue.

Land, a God-given asset, has been the problem between them. Tiv peasants want land to grow crops; Fulani herders want land for grazing.

A minor misunderstanding between them can escalate into violence, with each side taking up arms against the other. Attacks and counter attacks, with each side pointing accusing fingers at the other, have been severally recorded between them. This has led to the killing of hundreds between them, cutting across Nasarawa and Benue communities.

In the past months, now dragging into over a year, hundreds of thousands of people between the two ethnic groups have been displaced. It is these displaced persons who have been staying at the camps, on and off. It is these camps that Governor Al-Makura closed two weeks back, sending the displaced people into the firing range of attackers.

The governor first visited the camp at Kaderko, in Keana, and then left for Idadu, in Doma. He assured that his government had taken necessary security measures to safeguard their lives and property, and insisted that they must return home as part of their contributions to peace and security, and advised them to eschew bitterness.

“Our coming here today has become absolutely necessary because we are close to a situation of emergency and I feel before it gets out of hand, let us come and meet with you as individuals and leaders to tell ourselves the home truth and find the way out of this ugly situation”. Al-Makura who visited with members of his cabinet, said.

Zhe-Migili (traditional ruler), Dr Ayuba Agwadu, the Osakpa of Akpanaja, Alhaji Musa Abari, the member representing Keana, Francis Orogu, and his counterpart in Doma-South, Anthony Obande and the representative of the Tiv community, Joseph Gyor, all applauded the governor’s initiative as sure of ending the clashes.

But on return, the refugees faced some situation other than the one they anticipated. The violent attack on them was confirmed by Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) in charge of Nasarawa-South, ACP Musa.

“We have since sent a reinforcement to return normalcy to the village”, he said.

He said Tiv persons reported the incident, just as Fulani nomads also reported that they lost about 500 cows.

At the refugee camp, the displaced persons just returning there are facing, again, humanitarian crisis, with growing uncertainties over how they can survive with just a primary school classroom roof over their heads.

“We will stay again and watch things before we return to our homes. We can’t start rushing back now. For now, this primary school buildings are our home”, said one Mary, a mother of three children who escaped the attack with her family intact.

Another person, an older woman, Mama Tabitha, said she is back to the camp because there are no bullets there.

“But this camp is no different from the hostilities we have faced in our homes for months now”, she said, explaining that the situation at the camp presented its battle against the lives of those camping there.

“We need relief, but it doesn’t come. No water, no medicare, no hope; nothing. We just stay because of the classroom roof over our heads. That is all”, she said.

Sunday Trust recalls that life at the camps, particularly in Kadarko, had been a subject of growing concern. Travellers along Lafia-Makurdi road have been the only source of succor for the refugees. This reporter who had been there in November had captured life at the camp.

One displaced person, Shagari Ugboko, had clasped a loaf of bread, holding it tight to his bosom, when this reporter spoke with him. He screamed, calling out on his children one after another, and his wives – three of them, and his chain of in-laws – all displaced, and camping at the primary school.

“I got this bread from a distant relative who was travelling this way. He bought it for my family. It is our first food since the breakfast we managed to get”, he had said.

It was one evening. That was when the camp received the first ever serious attention – the visit of the Speaker, Benue State House of Assembly (BSHA), Barrister David Iorhemen, who was there with his Chief of Staff, Dr. Moses Utor. The Benue speaker had condemned the two governors for ‘looking the other way’ while violent clashes consumed their people, just as he frowned that not even a loaf of bread was sent by authorities to support the people. The next day, he sent his wife who visited and made donations.

Two days later, Nasarawa State Government woke up and headed to Kadarko, making donations of relief materials. But it turned out that a large proportion of the grains taken there by NASEMA were contaminated with fungi and weevils.

“What they brought for us was poison; simple. They simply went to the market and searched for condemned foodstuff to buy for us because we have been criticizing government for not doing anything for us”, Victor Gwar, one of the displaced persons had said.

The sacks containing grains, beans, as well as garri, a local cassava flake were infested with weevils and fungi, compelling the displaced persons to reject them in a protest that hit the team of officials of the state government, during the distribution.

Gwar was a member and secretary of a 7-man committee elected on the directive of the Nasarawa State Government to aid the management and distribution of relief materials to the displaced persons. But there was no relief for the committee to manage or distribute, and the need for relief increasingly grew with the growing number of refugees at the camp.

NASEMA said it was aware that there were over 15,000 families at the camp, and that more were still entering the camp.

Gwar and his committee members had been going about the camp with exercise books in their hands. The content was the rising number of refugees, about 7,000 of them, whom they recorded according to the communities of the persons.

“But we only record names and keep the exercise books with us. People keep trooping in on us to get their names on our records. Now, nobody comes; even when we demand for names from new entrants”, Gwar had said, explaining, “there is nothing to give them; our books are not worth the pain people are going through to find their names there. They have long discovered that it is one of those government pranks. For us, government has only succeeded in giving us bad names. For our persons displaced, we and government are one – a twin evil, representing promises, and failures.”

The relief that came, after all, brought pain, however, because it was contaminated. NBS, the state owned broadcast station, had quoted NASEMA for saying that the contaminated food was bought at “N5 million.”

“The beans they brought are all infested with weevils. Same for maize and guinea corn. Instead of grains, we had the powdered remains of grains and weevils. Garri was even worse because it cemented from fungi. That is what the state government; a government we voted for, brought for us because we are displaced, and need aid”, a protester at the camp had said.

The state commissioner for Women Affairs, Hajiya Hadiza Alakayi, and Executive Secertary of NASEMA, Ibrahim Abu, confirmed the food was contaminated.

But the commissioner who raised her hands up in the air to address protesters at the camp, insisted that the displaced persons can take it, saying it was still healthy. This is just as she expressed anger that instead of making thanksgiving to Governor Al-Makura for looking their way at all, they preferred to protest over rotten food, when at least, rice and other items were still in good conditions.

NASEMA corrected this, three weeks later, when the agency procured and distributed healthy food to the displaced persons. It was all praises to the government. But the gesture stopped there as government continued to look away from the displaced persons whose number continued to grow because of unending violent clashes. This month, the governor announced the closure of the camps.

“We needed relief like building materials, to aid our return to our razed villages. The governor promised us, but till today, we have nothing. What we have is the return of attacks on us”, Joseph Gyor, representative of the Tiv community, said this week, after the attack on Shatse.

Mohammed Hussaini, state secretary of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, a Fulani socio-cultural group, had also condemned government for looking the other way while refugees’ humanitarian condition worsens.

Both Tiv and Fulani leaders have repeatedly challenged Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State and his Nasarawa State counterpart, Al-Makura, to receive and issue a white paper for the implementation of the report on the incessant Tiv/Fulani crisis at the border communities.

Al-Makura and Suswam, had on June 25, met at the border community of Yelwata for a peace meeting which resulted in the inauguration of a committee of 10, five each from the two respective states with the reference terms to investigate the remote causes of the crisis and to recommend lasting solutions.