Lives of displaced Jos ‘One Million’

Written by Duncan Saturday, 24 September 2011

Internally Displaced Persons in camps spread across Bauchi State wait in hope and fear for a chance to rebuild their shattered lives Ubale Soja is one of the over million persons who suffer displacement as a result of the crisis that have at various times erupted in Plateau State, leading him and others, mostly women and children, to flee to the neighbouring state of Bauchi where what they now have as a home in the refugee camp they live in is a temporary shelter which is ramshackle and lacks toilets and drainage facilities. He recalls a previous time, just in 2001, before the Yelwan Shandam crisis that led to the lost of several lives and the displacement of thousands of people when he lives in a modest house and earns a living by trading and where also his children attend the local community school and life was basically safe.

“But all that is lost now,” he says.

Soja says their fate is brutally ironic because when they fled in the heat of the Plateau crisis they were not only fleeing for their lives but also seeking a safe haven where they can pick up the shattered pieces of their displaced former lives and rebuild a fresh future, even if difficult, for themselves and their wives and children. But the condition at the camp is anything but safe. While they have escaped being felled by bullets or being cut down by machetes wielded by angry mobs braying for their blood, they live in constant fear of diseases because of the poor hygiene in the camps and have also been left exposed to criminals because the camp have no police presence.

Deeper insecurities gnaw at their human dignity: they have lost means of livelihood and live a beggarly life when once they used to be farmers, traders and civil servants. The bright future they hope to build for their children is threatened by the fact that the camps where they are housed have only one or two schools which could not adequately accommodate their children, leaving them at the risk of spending the most impressionable period of their lives idle and with no adequate preparation for a future life.

Community leaders in refugee camps in Marrarabar Liman Katagun, Sabo Kuletu, Gadan Baram and Lere complained about the desperate conditions at the camps when a federal government delegation sent to the camp led by the Director General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Muhammad Sani Sidi visited their communities to assess their conditions. Community leaders Haruna Shuaib and Inusa Abdullahi complain of unemployment, poor roads in the camps and flooding which has swept off some of their houses.

Says Shuaib:“Some of us have their jobs before the crises and now we have nothing doing, we want the government to help us in getting employments, and we need schools for our children.”

What might look like a simple request is actually at the heart of the poverty and suffering which is starkly visible in the camps. Having lived for so long on the handouts of food and blankets coming from the government, the displaced persons in the camp are coming to a quiet realization of how far handouts from the government will take them. Government officials now acknowledge that the best way of rehabilitating the displaced persons is by helping to reintegrate them into their host states and communities.

While Bauchi provides such hopes, the magnitude of the challenges posed by the displaced persons have stretched the resources of the state and makes such reintegration a difficult task. In addition, Bauchi also grapples with its own share of sectarian strife and any such long term reintegration of displaced persons must take cognizance of competition for land and religious and ethnic factors that will make displaced persons welcomed into their new communities.

“Bauchi State has the largest number of Internally Displaced Persons in the country with quite a number of settlements in various local government of the state; the displaced persons were victims of crisis that occurred in the neighbouring states of Borno, Plateau, and Kaduna,” says Sidi, NEMA’s DG.

The NEMA DG says to the community leaders he will convey their troubles to the President. But in a system where bureaucratic bottlenecks delays even the most urgent decisions, this assurance does not extend much hope to the hapless inhabitants of the camps whose long wait for settlement is becoming a long stretch. More worrisome though is the crisis that has led to the displacement of the people, especially the one in Plateau have continued, with only temporary lulls before the next incidence triggers a wave of deaths, destruction and further exodus that threatens to swell the ranks of the already overpopulated camps.

Promises aside though, both the federal government’s NEMA and the Bauchi State government’s State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) couldn’t be specific about how they intend to develop infrastructures in the camp giving time frames that will indicate a viable plan on ground to help the displaced out of their plight.  Rather adopting the tone of a clergy the NEMA DG told the displaced persons: “God knows why he created us together, we have to be patient with one another, let us live in peace for the development of this nation.”

It is an admonition the displaced are familiar with, most especially as government officials overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem on ground are sometimes short of words to express to the displaced, beyond references to being patient and learning to live in peace with one another. But the demeanour of the displaced sometimes betrays the fact that they are running out of patience with their condition. The alternative of returning back to the communities they fled from is one they no longer entertain not only because they are no longer welcomed but because the memories of the trauma they passed through seeing friends and family members hacked to death leaves a bitter memory that is better never revisited.

The only alternative left of being reintegrated in their new communities sounds like a distant dream, especially with government officials coming for on-sight inspections leaving with promises to relay their plight to the President. As Sada says, part of his assignment is “to compile all issues relating to the development, especially on displacement and forward to him (President Jonathan) for comprehensive and holistic approach to solving the plight of the displaced persons.”

Truth is while government officials present an active front that suggest the plight of the displaced will soon be over once plans and assessments are complete, what is hindering help coming to the displaced is the paucity of funds which somehow have not been made available to help them out of their plight and provide them with the schools and hospitals they have been promised regularly by government officials. Paucity of funds has also meant that lands could not be acquired for the displaced and programmes that will empower them economically could not take off.

According to NEMA, over 598,000 Internally Displaced Persons and their families were resettled in 5 resettlement centres between 2009 till date, while about 207,000 were resettled between 2004 to 2008 in 2 resettlement centres across Toro, Bauchi, Tafawa Balewa, Ningi and Dass Local Government Areas of Bauchi State. In addition to this number, there is a daily influx of refugees from crisis flashpoints in Plateau State. In all the NAMA DG estimates there are over a million displaced persons in Bauchi alone.

A visit to the various resettlement centres shows that while they battle with common problems of development, they struggle with different plights whose severity differ from one camp to the other.

At the Baram Gada Resettlement Centre, displaced persons say their major worries are accommodation because of their large population, lack of water and a plea to expand the primary school in the community. They also want a skills acquisition centre and soft loans that will enable them embark on small businesses.

The displaced persons in Mararaban Liman Katagum Resettlement Centre worry about floods that have frequently washed away their homes. The inhabitants of the camp say they want their clinic to be expanded and would also want a police post, access roads, drainages and building materials to build their homes.

The Kuletu Resettlement Centre located near Dass town has several hundreds of displaced persons comprising mainly women and children. The leader of the community listed their major challenges to include access road, drainage and health facilities.

The Lere Resettlement Centre which at the moment plays host to 125 families lacks drainages says the community leader Musa Ibrahim Mubi. Mubi says the people will like the government to assist in the provision of drainages, expansion of existing primary and secondary schools, and the government to provide them with additional building materials, provide employment opportunities, expand existing health facilities and provide them with electricity.

The Boto Resettlement Centre hosts over 2000 displaced persons. Their leader, Mallam Halidu says they will appreciate if the government provides support for nomadic education in the community and provide them with water, expand their health facilities and provide them with lands and building materials to build more houses.

At the Tafawa Balewa Rehabilitation Centre the level of underdevelopment is more massive leading to a complete absence of social or economic activities. Generally, what the displaced are asking for is a semblance of development and assistance from the government to help them pick up the pieces of their lives.

The NEMA DG left Bauchi with promises to convey the troubles of the people to President Jonathan. While his convoy leaves the camps behind the displaced persons are left with the bitter memories of a time when life was a bit secure and they had jobs and means of livelihood and their children went to school and there was laughter on the lips of their women. Is that era lost forever for them or will the government provide them with a fighting chance to recapture once again the lost magic of those days? As Soja says, “Everything is now in the hands of the President. God may use him to help us.”

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