NIGERIA'S ENDANGERED IDPS

During the Christmas holidays I saw a documentary on Al-Jazeerah about refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo domiciled in Malawi. It featured one of the Congolese refugees who was formerly a popular rapper in the DRC (before threats to his life forced him to flee and become a refugee), and showcased life at the refugee camp, as well as the rapper's attempt to regain as much as possible every bit of the life he left behind in the Congo. Many things about that refugee camp struck me as out of the ordinary, compared with those in Nigeria. For one, make shift shelters have given way to brick bungalows, raw food was adequately dispensed as and at when due, and I think to some extent quite more for some people, because the rapper in the documentary claims (and it was shown) he gives excess of his to families with more mouths to feed, seeing as he is a bachelor and lives alone. This United Nations administered refugee camp had running water, and was like a small town only that there is a gate that restricts movement, allowing people who had genuine reasons to go outside it to leave for a specified period only, then return. Believe me, except what I saw on that day was stage managed, I could have sworn that most people's existence in that camp was far better than those of most Nigerians who live free, talk more those who have found themselves in Internally Displaced Peoples', IDP camps because of the ongoing war against the dreaded Islamic Fundamentalist group, Boko Haram in the northeast.


I cannot recall at anytime, besides the provision of makeshift shelter, that the IDPs in Nigeria's northeast had any cause to celebrate, though not that anyone in an IDP camp would or should have anything to celebrate, but if one considers the austere situation that brought them to the camps, then little mercies like the one I highlighted with the situation in Malawi would've been enough cause to celebrate, unfortunately this hasn't been the case with the Nigerian IDP, whom I daresay, that save for the inclement weather Syrian refugees have to contend with presently, as well as political issues surrounding their situation in Europe, are far better in terms of welfare and related matters.


To say that the IDPs of Nigeria's northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, have been dealt the wrong hands of fate will be an understatement. These escaped literally with their lives in their hands, onto the protection of  government that provided camps for them. From the very first day they set their foot 'pon those camps, it's been one sad news to the other. At the initial stage when the economy was bouyant under former president Goodluck Jonathan, and even after stealing some of the funds allocated to the welfare of those displaced by Nigeria's "war on terror", the IDPs were not treated like humans. I saw pictures of IDPs been dished bland "jollof" rice using spades and shovels for instance. There were widespread reports of sexual abuse of mostly female IDPs at the hands of those who managed the camps, and personnel of security agencies deployed to those camps.


These cases worsened with the emergence of the President Muhammadu Buhari government with its "lean purse" policy. Now the people in authority, who had a bit to spare for the IDPs after  corruptly enriching themselves with the much in the days of plenty, had little or nothing to spare for the welfare of the IDPs after removing their part, as their cut now became the whole, and that scandal lingered for a while, till it fizzled out of press coverage, not because the situation got better but as with everything Nigerian, noise just simply dies down after a while (especially when government feeds to the press, yet another arrest of an opposition politician for embezzlement while in power, and the gullible get carried away by the frenzy thus created four another while), and the IDPs continued to suffer for no just cause (not that there's even a just cause for them to suffer). Those who escaped death at the hands of Boko Haram, found it at the hands of  government-induced malnutrition and hunger, and the pictures are there for all to see. Of course, the abuse of IDPs continued not only unabated but with impunity and  shamelessly, under a regime flaunting a no-nonsense approach towards corruption as it's credentials, so much so that the secretary to the federal government, awarded a contract for the clearing of weed around IDP camps to a company in which he has interest, and as if that wasn't even bad enough, the company had the temerity not to deliver on its trivial mandate for the millions of naira allocated to it, and yet the man neither resigned from his position, nor the government fired him.


And just as usual with all things Nigerian, when it seems government have become so steeped in its ways over a subject that the people simply just let go, especially at this period when Human Rights Activists have either in the main pitched their lot with the government in power, fearing retribution and silencing that's become the lot of those who felt to continue where they left off with the previous  government, only to hear that a Nigerian Airforce jet bombarded an IDP camp in the Rann (a border town between Nigeria and Cameroon) area of Borno state, on Tuesday. Depending on which media you're listening to, the death toll is between fifty and two hundred, involving personnel of Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF, International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC and several IDPs who according to eye witness accounts, were on a queue to collect humanitarian materials. As usual the  government owned Nigerian Television Authority, NTA has stuck with "accidental incident" at an IDP camp as the body of its news item concerning the unfortunate event, totally withdrawing the naming of the culprit in that dastardly act, except when it involved condemnation by the president and his order to concerned authorities to investigate the matter (with findings that will never be made public even if the order is complied with).

AFTERMATH OF THE BOMBING OF AN IDP CAMP IN RANN, BORNO STATE BY THE NIGERIAN AIRFORCE.

What is most baffling for many an observer of this event is how the Nigerian Airforce, which had in the past claimed that it restrained from bombing Boko Haram insurgents severally because they had people suspected to be innocent civilians (including at some point, the abducted secondary school girls from Chibok) in their midst and may be using same as human shield, yet in this matter opted to bomb civilians on a queue, not once, not twice, but thrice (according to eye witness account)! I cannot even begin to imagine the trauma, already  traumatized IDPs affected by this incident are presently going through, after the dehumanization they had witnessed at the hands of those saddled with the responsibility of their safety and well-being so far, only to now have to suffer this as well. When one of the survivors told the press that the government was out to wipe them out I couldn't but empathize with his situation. Who wouldn't think such, having gone through their many predicaments?


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- https://www.pulse.ng.com

BUHARI, SO FAR, SO .....?

It is not just enough to simply stave off the growing concern of public spirited Nigerians about the direction the anti-corruption war is going, following recent revelations involving members of President Muhammadu Buhari's sanctum sanctorium, dipping their hands in the national cookie jar, by claiming that it is corruption fighting back. In the past few days, and weeks before that, even those who believe that the senate is on a revenge mission against the presidency, in the recess of their minds wonder how it came to be that the one on whose shoulders rest, the investigation and prosecution of the corrupt, hasn't himself approached to equity with clean hands.

EFCC BOSS, MR. IBRAHIM MAGU, WHOSE CONFIRMATION THE SENATE HALTED FOLLOWING SECURITY REPORTS BROUGHT AGAINST HIM, AND SECRETARY TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, BABACHIR LAWAL WHO ALLEGEDLY AWARDED CONTRACTS FOR "CLEANING OF INVASIVE PLANT SPECIES" AT IDP CAMPS FOR MILLIONS OF NAIRA, AMONGST OTHER CONTRACTS RELATING TO IDPS TO COMPANIES IN WHICH HE HAD INTEREST.

Even if they choose to close their eyes to it, the picture of the dying malnourished in the various Internally Displaced People's (IDP) camps in the northeast of Nigeria, mainly due to diversion of funds meant to ensure that such an outcome doesn't become today's narrative, by the secretary to the federal government via proxies, from irrefutable evidence not just as presented in the senate, or in the press, from whose eyes the scales appear to be gradually falling as regards their posture to this "saintly"  government, but even from reputable civil society, will make even the ardent supporter (though definitely not the incorrigible zombies, akin to the "walkers" in the walking dead), shudder to the bone.

 MALNOURISHED CHILDREN AT AN IDP CAMP IN BORNO, NORTHEAST NIGERIA.

Hence, the children that supposedly escaped death by the hands of Boko Haram, the funds of which was meant to decimate became frittered away by the past regime, now face death by starvation and malnutrition, after funds grew wings under a "puritanist" government supposedly elected to right the wrongs of the past.


The last straw that they seem to be hanging on, remain the so called incorruptibility of the god-hero, Buhari forgetting that this isn't the first time something like this will happen, seeing that if you consider when he chaired the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, or was military Head of State, or as Petroleum Minister, this is more like deja vu, where he rants like the loan voice "crying in the wilderness" against corruption, yet associates (many of which he  nepotistically enabled into high profile positions) of his with impunity perpetrate the same ills to high heavens, daring anyone to bat an eyelid. Unfortunately, this is one man that never accepts responsibility like Adam in "the fall of man", even when the buck naturally should stop at his desk, not just for present sins, but for past sins against Nigerians and their psyche while in power, in the corridors of power, even in seeking power.


There's no gainsaying that the lopsided anti-corruption war has hit a brick wall, as many of the opposition politicians who hitherto felt the heat as they were rounded off to detention and to the counts have now begun to find the whole exercise amusing, to the extent of posing for selfies while in detention,

REUBEN ABATI, MUSILIU OBANIKORO, FEMI FANI KAYODE AND OTHERS POSE FOR PICTURES WHILE IN EFCC DETENTION FACILITY RECENTLY.

after discovering that the whole process had been what they guessed it to be, a charade, with some of the crafty ones decamping to the ruling party to attain the sainthood that automatically accrues to members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC regardless of whatever type of corruption (and innocent lives that might have been lost by their actions and inactions) they might have committed either at state or national level, in order to have their cases at various levels of prosecution stalled and/or possibly stopped. The only ones not finding it funny, remain those with whom he has personal grouse, or whose people's quest for "self determination" he loathes with a vengeance, who despite courts of competent jurisdiction, locally and continentally, ruling to the effect that such "political prisoners" be granted bail, he continues to turn a "deaf ear" to.

FORMER NSA, IBRAHIM DASUKI AND PRO-BIAFRA LEADER NNAMDI KANU, WHOSE CONTINUED INCARCERATION APPEAR TO BE AT THE PERSONAL BEHEST OF PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI. 

Now, the renegades in the ruling party, once slated for slaughter, have now become favoured brides of the president and

ONCE VILIFIED SENATE PRESIDENT, NOW THE NEW WINE IN ASO ROCK. 

presidency, whose listening "ear", he's no longer reluctant to lend, as the reality of 2019 dawns, without an attendant waning of and for the allure of power, even if it's just for the sake of bagpiper soldiers rising to almost every occasion at the whims of the handlers of the president,

BAGPIPE PLAYING SOLDIERS, A NEW FEATURE SINCE PRESIDENT BUHARI CAME TO POWER LESS THAN TWO YEARS AGO, AND GROWING TO BECOME A REGULAR FEATURE WHEN THE PRESIDENT LEAVES OR ARRIVES TO THE COUNTRY, AMONGST SEVERAL OTHER SUNDRY OCCASIONS. 

even at times when their melodious presence are totally uncalled for. It doesn't matter if the ministers have performed woefully since assuming office, or availed themselves of the opportunity of a budget presentation to the joint sitting of the National Assembly, by their principal to "sleep",

SOME OF PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI'S MINISTERS SOMNOLENT AS THEIR PRINCIPAL PRESENTS BUDGET 2017 PROPOSAL TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.

or have provided much needed comedy (and embarrassment to the government, and country before the world) with their positions on issues, comments, statements, even turning the English language on its head, to Nigerians at a difficult time as this. The economy can go to hell, even the Naira that's speedily becoming toilet paper before foreign currencies can discover oil for all he cares, retention of power by all means necessary seems to be the byword of his party, with the "Independent" National Electoral Commission, INEC honing it's skills, with smaller but bloody and controversial elections (a reason a Buhari is now the last person Gambia's Yayah Jammeh is willing to listen to, as negotiations to persuade him to hand over power to his victorious opponent in the country's last presidential elections continues) in preparation for the year of the dog and baboon, as he seeks to destroy the ladder by which he ascended to power.


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- https://www.google.com/amp/www.vanguardngr.com/2016/12/sen-wabara-calls-resignation-magu-lawal/amp/
- http://buzznigeria.com/starvation-children-borno-unicef/
- https://www.google.com/amp/punchng.com/top-social-media-photo/amp/
- http://www.post-nigeria.com/buhari-set-to-release-kanu-dasuki-others/
- https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.naij.com/amp/655735-photo-see-president-buhari-senate-president-saraki-today.html
- http://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2016/02/buharis-strange-scottish-bagpipers-at-abuja-airport/
- http://www.nigerianmonitor.com/buharis-ministers-caught-sleeping-during-his-2017-budget-presentation/