BORNO’S POOR MANAGEMENT OF IDPs: How Beggars Take Over Maiduguri Streets

By Maryam Musa

Over the years, Borno State has been badly affected by the scourge of insurgency as hundreds of thousands of lives were affected which resulted in a humanitarian crisis that was never before been seen in the history of Kanem Borno Empire.

In 2020, the Nigerian refugee crisis will be going into its seventh year. Since violent attacks of the Islamist group Boko Haram started to spill over Nigeria’s north-eastern frontier in 2014, Cameroon, Chad and Niger have been drawn into what has become a devastating regional conflict.

To date, the Lake Chad Basin region is grappling with a complex humanitarian emergency. Over 3.4 million people have been displaced, including over 2.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in north-eastern Nigeria, over 684,000 IDPs in Cameroon, Chad and Niger and 294,000 refugees in the four countries.

The crisis has been exacerbated by conflict-induced food insecurity and severe malnutrition, which have risen to critical levels in all four countries. Despite the efforts of Governments and humanitarian aid in 2019, some 3.5 million people remain food insecure in the Lake Chad Basin region and will depend on assistance.

The challenges of protecting the displaced are compounded by the deteriorating security situation as well as socio-economic fragility, with communities in the Sahel region facing chronic poverty, a harsh climatic conditions, recurrent epidemics, poor infrastructure and limited access to basic services.

The Nigerian military, together with the Multinational Joint Task Force, have driven extremists from many of the areas they once controlled, but these gains have been overshadowed by an increase of Boko Haram attacks in neighbouring countries. Despite the return of Nigerian IDPs and refugees to accessible areas, the crisis remains acute.

Couple with the humanitarian crisis, Maiduguri, the capital city, is witnessing large chunk of destitute that littered the streets at every corner. A first time visitor to the city, Marilyn Turkson, lamented the desperation in the eyes of the beggars who made up a group of all ages. Maintaining that some of them can snatch a thing from one’s hand or better still rob.

Disturbing as that may be, Turkson posited that the Covid 19 pandemic, which left a big hole in the world economy, did not leave Nigeria out of its firm grips, and is therefore not surprised by the situation she witnessed as pictured above. She maintained that the global economy is in a tailspin, “even as IMF and the World Bank have both predicted a contraction of the global economy with developing economies likely to be worst affected.” This situation, according to her, is the direct result of the menace of the COVID-19 pandemic

Governor Babagana Umara Zulum, who is tagged “the IDP Governor” and truly, the displaced see in him a Messiah capable of changing the status quo, but despite his energy and resilience, he is gradually submitting to the new dictate of the global financial crisis. The lean allocation the state gets from the monthly allocation of the federal government, cannot augment for the crisis at hand.

Despite efforts by the government to end street begging in the capital, the influx of displaced persons into the state capital has continued to increase. This is owing to the fact that displaced individuals, who are refused entry into major IDP camps in Maiduguri now, hibernate on street corners in search of food and water.

So a volunteer NGO worker in the city of Maiduguri, who craved for anonymity, believes that many of the displaced persons now survive on streets begging, while the young women amongst them are turning themselves and are now allegedly engaged in the sex trade for shelter.

The NGO worker told DESERT HERALD that “What remains an eyesore and a source for concern is how the IDP’s roam the streets with their cooking utensils, mattresses, blankets, buckets and other domestic items given to them by the international Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs), selling them at giveaway prices., and they use the proceeds to buy food for themselves and sometimes their children too.”

What remains a puzzle to Mallam Inusa, an IDP from Baga who lives in the “Teachers Village camp,” is how the donor agencies remain adamant to this open commercial activities engaged by the IDPs. Inusa was quite pessimistic on how soon this crisis will come to an end. He went further to say “everything goes around a conduit pipe, there’s much to this crisis than what we superficially know”.

It is clear, however, that the ban on street begging is not a feasible enterprise and this comes with a lot of consequences unless drastic measures are taken.

Will the relevant authorities brace up and do what is expected of them in this regard, time shall tell.