From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
Years after they were displaced from their ancestral homes, over 1.5 million Benue State internally displaced persons (IDPs) still cannot return home.
This is because fear of being killed by their assailants has continued to grip their hearts as well as the killing of those who had attempted to return home in the past.
Mary Terna, a 19-year-old mother of one and a native of Nyior village in Yelwata area of Benue State, has been at the Uikpam IDP camp since 2018 when she escaped from herdsmen who attacked her village and environs.
“Although, I wish to return to my Nyior village in Yelwata but I’m afraid to do so because the Fulani are still very much around and grazing their cattle in our village,” she lamented.
Sitting alone and looking vacantly into space, Mary, who got married at the camp in 2019 to Terna Iyoryiosugh, also an IDP, looks forward to the time the attacks would end and she would be able to return either to her village or her husband’s village.
“I’m very tired of staying here in camp but I have nowhere to go. I am not doing anything in camp. I only depend on the benevolence of Nigerians, government and international donors to feed. I need help because I don’t even have food to eat,” she further said.
Also, Dooshima Aondoana, a 25-year-old mother of five, who ran away from her Tse-Daudu village in 2018, recalled how the herdsmen attacked them in the middle of the night and sent them relocating to IDP camps since then.
She said: “On the day the Fulani struck, we were sleeping in the night when we started hearing gunshots from the next village and people from that village running towards our village.
We all ran under the cover of the night for safety. I don’t know how I managed to escape to safety with my three children then.”
She said although security agents have tried to ensure the Fulani were driven out of the area, the people are still afraid to go back home because they are not yet sure of their safety: “I had two other children in camp bringing the number of my children to five. We have all been living on the benevolence of good Nigerians since then. Sometimes, some people come to hire us to work for them in their farms or at home, after which they pay us peanuts.
“My husband is also trying his best by doing menial jobs to fend for the family but, as you can see, whatever he brings back is always grossly inadequate to cater for our already large family.”
But she has resigned to fate. According to her, although she’s tired of staying endlessly in camp, she has no choice but to continue there, hoping that one day the attacks would end and they will return to their ancestral homes in peace.
Pastor Sylvester Nambe from Tse-Usenda village at Torkula community in Guma Local Government Area of the state said he became an IDP in 2015 with his family.
The 75-year-old father of eight children and over 20 grandchildren said he was at the IDP camp at St. Mary’s Primary School, Camp 2, Daudu, for about five years before he, alongside other IDPs, were moved to the Ukpiam camp.
The septuagenarian husband of two wives, who insisted that herdsmen were still on rampage in their village, said they could not go back yet. He added that he was surviving on the petty business of selling cigarettes, kolanuts and the likes in camp.
He recalled that when he was in his village, he was very comfortable, farming rice, yam, cassava, corn, maize, egusi and so on. He explained that when he was in his village, he not only had enough to feed his family but also had more than enough to sell and earn money.
Meanwhile, many prominent Benue State people, including the state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Akpen Leva, and the president-general of Mzough-U-Tiv, Chief Iorbee Ihagh, have continued to decry the continued stay of IDPs in camps.
They have, therefore, called on the Federal Government to fulfil its promise of N10 billion to resettle the IDPs in their ancestral homes.
Also, Governor Samuel Ortom, while unveiling the Benue State Humanitarian Response Plan (BSHRP 2022), lamented the continued stay of over 1.5 million people, mostly peasant farmers, in IDP camps.
Performing the ceremony at the new banquet hall of the Government House, Makurdi, the governor stated that his administration was working assiduously to ensure that the IDPs in various camps across the state are resettled in their homes.
“It is the security situation that has kept the IDPs in the camps till now. Those who attempted going back were attacked and killed. I don’t desire that anyone should be in the camp. I have interacted with them and nobody wants to be there.
“It is worrisome for a state like Benue, which is agrarian and supported by the civil service, to have over 1.5 million internally displaced persons. Farming activities have been brought to a halt,” the governor lamented.
Ortom, however, commended the efforts of the various stakeholders in the humanitarian response for standing by the state and supporting the people all along.
Chairman, document drafting committee, Prof. Magdalene Dura, during the event, disclosed that on June 17, 2021, Ortom set up a multisectoral technical committee to work on a humanitarian response plan for Benue State.
“Today we are happy that the assignment given to us has been successfully concluded as evidenced in the readiness of the Benue State Humanitarian Response Plan (BSHRP) for public presentation,” she said.
Dura noted that 21 out of the 23 local government areas in the state have come under attack by herdsmen from 2011 to the end of 2021, leading to the displacement of over 1.5 million people.
She described the plan as a practical demonstration of the commitment of the state government and its partners to a full-fledged response to the humanitarian crisis in the state.
“The dire humanitarian situation in the state is further compounded by the influx of Cameroonian refugees escaping the conflict in their country into kwande local government area. The IDPs have had their livelihoods destroyed and are in need of protection, food, shelter and medical assistance,” she further said.
Dura, while explaining that the Benue State humanitarian response plan is designed to align humanitarian response to the realities of operating and achieving impact in the context of Benue State, said the plan adopts the provisions in the national human plan.
“In designing this plan, the Benue State technical committee on humanitarian response also drew useful insights from the recommendations of the humanitarian country team.”
She, therefore, appealed to national and international humanitarian actors to bring more capacity to rescue and reverse the humanitarian situation in Benue State of Nigeria.
