Blame game trails corruption in IDP camps
There has been a blame game over the alleged misdeeds in the distribution of food items to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in various camps in Borno State. The seven-year old Boko Haram insurgency in the NorthEast has claimed several lives while properties worth billions of naira have been destroyed.
The blame game is among the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and the displaced persons.
Although no official can quote the exact amount of money spent on internally displaced persons because it is still ongoing, it is said to run into billions of naira. As corruption continues to mar the relief programme, the displaced persons are at the receiving end.
Over 90 per cent of the displaced population is in various camps hastily opened, officially or unofficially.
At the peak of the insurgency, 21 official camps were opened in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, accommodating about 360,000 displaced persons. The 21 camps were gradually reduced to the current 11 because some of them were educational institutions and there was the need for academic activities to resume. The present 11 accommodate about 136, 000 displaced persons while some returned to their liberated communities.
While the number of official camps managed by the federal and state governments through the NEMA and SEMA and the population of displaced persons they accommodate are known, the number of unofficial camps, known as host communities, and their populations are not known.
The Maiduguri metropolis is replete with these unofficial (host community) camps. There is hardly an area without one or two of such camps, which are also found in obscure places, some accommodating just a single family or a couple of families.
Daily Trust on Sunday observed that officials of the NEMA and SEMA concentrate on the establishment and management of official camps, using multistakeholder clusters according to the various needs of the displaced persons. Each cluster comprises the officials of both agencies and other members drawn from international donor agencies, strategic partners, comprising the global agencies, and other international non-governmental organisations.
Every official camp has a management committee, with a chairman and other officials appointed by the displaced persons themselves. Every management committee also has the police, civil defence corps, members of the civilian JTF and the vigilante, and few other agencies as members. The military are only to guard the perimeter fences and gates, but the camps are managed by NEMA officials.
Various camps take delivery of relief materials, including food items, mosquito nets and medicine, etc, which are subsequently distributed among the displaced persons.
At the peak of the insurgency, various camp management committees introduced direct central cooking as their method of feeding, with NEMA supplying the foodstuff like rice, beans and other grains while the Borno State Government, through the SEMA, contributed condiments like pepper, tomatoes, seasoning and other related items. The local governments where the displaced persons in the camps hailed from also contributed firewood and items.
As time went on, logistic challenges emerged, characterised by complaints from the displaced persons about shortage of food. It was alleged that dishonest persons would manipulate their ways to receive rations for three or more persons, thereby disorganising the sharing formula.
There was also the allegation that camp stewards also engaged in fraudulent activities, often cooking meals in excess to sell in the market. This practice highly contributed to the shortage of food in various camps.
To stop such sharp practices, officials of the NEMA and SEMA met and resolved to adopt the dry ration method of feeding. Under this method, foodstuff and the necessary condiments were distributed to the displaced persons who prepare their meals themselves. This method of feeding is still operational in various camps.
However, the displaced persons have continued to complain about this method of feeding, saying the quantity of foodstuff and condiments given to them for one month hardly lasts for a week. Members of camp management committees and other stakeholders are yet to solve this problem.
On Friday, July 21, 2017, officials of the NEMA met with the World Food Programme (WFP), a strategic partner, to discuss the possibility of adopting a cash transfer relief provision in line with the global best practices on the sustenance of internally displaced persons. As a result of this, the monthly provision of food for each displaced family, according to international standard, will now be valued in cash and given to them. According to NEMA officials, this new method of feeding has already commenced in Dalori camp 2 and some unofficial camps, with about 40,000 displaced persons.
The NEMA has the mandate to ensure that other management partners in various camps, such as the SEMA and international humanitarian organisations discharge their duties according to their mandate.
While the displaced persons accuse government agencies, especially SEMA, of diverting foods meant for them, the agencies also accuse them of selling their provisions themselves to portray them (NEMA and SEMA) to the public as ‘fraudulent, wicked and apathetic to their plight.’
Some displaced persons also allege that substantial portions of their food are often diverted to feed insurgents in the bush.
Recounting his experience, Abba Ibrahim Bashir, one of the displaced persons in Dalori camp 1, who now resides in one of the host communities with his family said, “My wife and five children have been displaced for four years and some months now. I left the camp because what I was receiving for the upkeep of my family was grossly insufficient.
“Those of us in host communities should also be catered for with whatever is provided by the donors, but this is not the case; not even a grain of rice has been given to me for the past three years. I do menial jobs on the streets and at construction sites to cater for my family.
“My current situation is even better because I can at least labour
for the upkeep of my family. Those locked in the camps are compelled to live with whatever they are provided with. They are not permitted to go out to source for anything.
“Even if I hear that relief materials are being distributed to displaced persons at the camps, none of my family members will go there because sometimes the distribution officials demand to do something with your wife before they give you anything substantial; or even anything at all. This is why I decided to avoid going to the camps. We also need relief materials; and we are entitled to them because we are displaced persons, whether we are in camps or host communities.
“I have about five brothers and sisters who decided to remain in the camp because they cannot afford to relocate to the host communities. The truth is that whoever is lucky to live out of camp would prefer doing so.
“In the camp, about 30 people share six bags of rice. Apart from that, they are not even given oil, pepper or any seasoning to prepare a meal; and no one can eat boiled rice without condiments.
“Because of this, they are always compelled to sell a portion of the foodstuff to buy the needed condiments and seasoning. Displaced persons in the camps are only given rice, maize flour or other grains, but they are hardly given condiments. I have never witnessed condiments being brought for distribution.”
Bashir is an indigene of Banki in Bama Local Government Area of Borno State.
Also sharing his experience with our correspondent, Babakura Ibrahim, who hails from Dikwa Local Government Area said, “The displaced persons in the camps are more fortunate than our counterparts in the host communities. This is because we are given our food provisions, although very insufficiently. I have relatives in the host communities and I am the one helping them out of the little I receive. However, they also help me with some condiments out of their toil in town.
“Most people in the unofficial camps don’t even attempt to go to the official camps for anything because it mostly turns out to be a futile exercise as they are often not given anything. In fact, they are always chased away as foodstuffs are not even sufficient for those in the official camps.
“Officials always complain of taking delivery of insufficient supplies. If, for example, 100 bags of rice are to be shared, only about 60 would actually get to the people. As a result of this, two or three families are made to share one bag. We are only lucky to receive occasional assistance from nongovernmental organisations. That is how we survive. Sometimes we go begging from our relatives in the host communities because they toil in town and sometimes have what I can call enough, out of which they give us a little. One truth is that most of us break the camp rule and go for street begging.
“Even without selling portions of the foodstuff, the monthly provisions do not last for two weeks, yet we must sell portions of it to buy condiments and kerosene to cook the meals. Condiments are supplied, but very few people are given. Even after selling portions of the foodstuff to buy condiments, most of us still have to go begging.
“Displaced persons in the host communities are supposed to equally benefit from all provisions, but in reality, most of them do not benefit. But it is always aired on the television that thousands of bags of rice and cartons of cooking condiments had been distributed to the internally displaced persons in host communities in this or that ward in Maiduguri.’’
Displaced persons in official and unofficial camps are unanimous on the allegation that the bulk of their supplies, donated either by the Federal Government or other donors, are diverted by government officials. They alleged that immediately after ceremonial distributions in the official camps or locations within the metropolis to a selected few by the governor, the actual distribution is often halted, and trucks would be seen carting away the relief materials. And nothing is heard of it afterwards.
They further alleged that pickup vans or trucks escorted by government officials are often seen at nights carting away huge quantities of the food items and condiments from the stores.
Reacting to allegations of diversion by government agencies and officials, the information officer of the NEMA, North-East, Malam Abdulkadir Ibrahim said, “The displaced persons themselves are also culprits in the circle of the misdeeds. They are also grossly dishonest in the give-and-take relationship between them and officials. For example, they engage in the practice of collecting double or triple rations while their fellow displaced persons go without meals. And they don’t care about what happens to those who go hungry. We met with the SEMA and other strategic partners and stopped that and they resorted to collecting dry rations, taking them to town and selling. And they come to complain that they have not been given.
“Some of them go to the extent of pretending that they are sick so that they would be given provisions for the sick. When they get such provisions they would sell them. We are still perplexed at this conduct because the rations and other things we serve them are according to international standards.
“How can someone use a “sick child” to collect drugs and foods, only to sell them in the market in town? When you go to the markets you will see such products. One lady would come with the child first and collect the items; then after such a time as they think is enough for the officials to forget whoever came with the child, another lady would come forth with the same child with the same complaint, and so on. There are so many of such naughty conducts.
“Members of various camp management committees are also culprits. They conspire with some government officials in the camp to steal food items.’’
The executive chairman of the Borno SEMA, Engr. Satomi Ahmed also said, “You cannot blame a person who has been traumatised. These people are deeply traumatised. Some of them lost their entire families and properties, so if you give them anything this minute and ask them a minute later if they had been given, they would still say they had not been given anything.
“The displaced persons in host communities do not stay in one place permanently. They move from one point to another, so it is not easy for you to capture their actual number; we only discover them using what we call emergency tracking data. It is on this basis that we serve them the provisions. We are, therefore, constrained to providing any assistance to those we have not yet tracked.
“We are going for a vulnerability assessment, during which we will target groups for registration. When we register a group, we capture the internally displaced persons and provide intervention. That is what the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and the cash-based WFP are doing. And this is what we are doing through the host-community food distribution. These are all contained in our initiative to cater for the displaced persons in the host communities.
“You can also recall, for example, that during the last Ramadan when we distributed food items to 1,000 internally displaced households in the host communities in each of the 27 wards of Maiduguri metropolis and Jere, this is how we catered for those in the unofficial camps. Reaching more of their population depends on the vulnerability assessment.
“They are always on the move. If you register them at point A and they know you are going to point B, they will move there. They live in makeshift tents, which will not take them more than three hours to construct, and they claim that they have not been catered for. It is those that are moving from one point to another who complain that they have not been catered for.
“In the official camps, there are displaced persons who are so fraudulent that they have dual registration - they are registered in their camps of residence in the metropolis as well as their liberated local government areas. They receive food items in their liberated communities, and on the eve of distribution in the camp, they will be present to receive rations as registered internally displaced persons.
“They are also telling lies that several families are grouped on one bag of rice. There is a standard we are following: for every adult, the dry food ratio is 320gm per day per person. This is the world standard; and it is for cereal alone. You can consume up to 500gm per day, but what matters most is the kilo calorie content of the food required for the person. The maximum rice you can consume as an individual in one month is 10kg because you can’t eat more than two cups in a day. So I will give you 10kg if you have five members in your family. I will multiply the 10 by five, which will give me 50kg. This is why we are giving them 50kg bag for a family of five for a month. It is the standard.
“I don’t know why they are complaining of condiments because we are providing them sufficient condiments, which are supplied by the Borno State Government. These condiments are provided by the end of every month. And I don’t even wait for the NEMA to provide them the foodstuff before I do that. You also heard that they sell portions of their foodstuff to buy other things. This happens when they have enough rice, for example, but they also need another type of meal; so they sell some quantity of the rice to buy what they need.
“It baffles me so deeply to hear them make the allegation that government officials divert food supplies. This is because I believe we are providing enough according to world standards. We are really baffled, but such allegation will not make the government to relent in its efforts to ensure their proper upkeep, according to international standards.”