The federal government through the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced persons has disclosed its readiness to build resettlement city for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria.
The federal commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced persons, Senator Basheer Mohammed made this known when the management team of LEADERSHIP Group visited the commission yesterday, in Abuja.
Mohammed said, “Our plan this year is to resettle one million displaced people who are scattered across the country and bring them back to their communities where peace have been restored, we have gone a long way in achieving this project because we have discussed with some of the state government, especially Borno state governor and we have identified about five local government where we intend to settle this people”.
“We call them Resettlement City, in each city, we intend to have four housing units, 300 comprising of two- bedroom, 100 comprising of 1-bedroom and in the city, we intend to have a mosque, church, school, clinic and skills acquisition center that will make up a city like anywhere in the world because all facilities will be there”.
He expressed that the Commission is saddled with the responsibility and the mandate of looking after an estimated figure of over 2.2 million Nigerians who are displaced, including our brothers and sisters outside the country like Niger, Cameroon and Chad, with an estimated number of 200, 000, that will be handled by the agency.
“This is the only agency saddled with the responsibility of looking after the vulnerable Nigerians, we provide them with food items and non-food items like clothing.”
We realised that keeping this people in camps and providing relieve materials is not enough and is not helping the government, that’s why we said the best thing to do as a commission is to see how we can find a way forward by reintegrating and rehabilitating them back to their communities so that they can join farming to be able to live a dignified life”, he added.
He said, “In Maiduguri, we intend to have 5 resettlement cities in 5 local government, we have identified 5 other states that are in need of such facilities like Cross Rivers, Adamawa, Katsina and Zamfara state. They are faced with the challenge of scattered count across the country and we have one thousand camps officials and non-officials.
He therefore sought the support of LEADERSHIP Group in promoting the commission’s agenda as a business entity that would help them amplify their project.
Responding, the Chief Operating Officer, LEADERSHIP Newspaper, Mr. Rasheed Yusuf assured of its readiness to partner the commission in conveying the commission’s activities and projects to the larger populace.
