Centre preaches reconciliation among 30,000 Bama returnees

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has implemented a one-day transitional justice programme among the about 30,000 internally displaced persons’ returnees in camps and the host community in Bama to foster mutual forgiveness among them about crimes perpetrated against each other during the Boko Haram insurgency.

“The programme is to sensitise the returnees on peaceful coexistence in post-insurgency settings,” Musa Zarami, the North-East Programme lead of the Centre, told Daily Trust in Bama shortly after the peace and reconciliation gathering with two sets of returnees in the host community.

“We are determined to ensure that returnees cultivate the culture of and promote justice and fairness among themselves to foster mutual forgiveness which is an essential requirement for rebuilding genuine and prosperous communal life in post-insurgency times,” Zarami, who represented the CDD Director, Dr. Idayat Hassan, at the gatherings, said.

While appreciating the efforts of the Centre at promoting peace, reconciliation and mutual forgiveness among them, the returnees converged on the unanimous complaint that government only catered for the returnees in camps, abandoning the majority of them who were in the host community to intense hardship.

“Since we returned in March this year, I have to either go to the camp to buy food items from our fellows there who are being supplied by government or travel to Maiduguri to do so,” Babakyra Bukar Iza complained to Daily Trust.