Boko Haram: IDPs protest food shortage in Adamawa

Some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in two camps in Adamawa State, on Wednesday, stormed the state capital, Yola, to protest shortage of food supply to them by the federal government for nearly four months.

The IDPs who took their protest to the Mahmud Ribadu Square in Jimeta, said they had not received supplies from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the federal government agency charged with supplying their food, in the last four months.

Their representatives who travelled to Yola from their camps in Fufore, said there were over 1,000 affected displaced persons in the camp .

The spokesman of the protesting IDPs, Umar Bakura, said, “For the past four months, we have not received any food from NEMA. Among us are children, elderly people and orphans.

“President Muhammadu Buhari should intervene; he should evacuate us back to our respective local government areas in Borno State,” Mr Umar pleaded.

He explained that he and other leaders of the IDPs had complained ‘severally’ to NEMA but got no result.

Mr Umar had earlier explained that the IDPs in Fufore, mostly Borno indigenes, were forced from their ancestral homes by Boko Haram insurgents.

NEMA reacts

When contacted on the phone, the acting Operational Officer of NEMA for Adamawa and Taraba states, Midala Anuhu, said the IDPs lied as it supplied food to the camp in December (2019).

“We have forwarded their case to our headquarters in Abuja and we are still waiting for the approval,” he said, assuring that (another) supply would be made soon as approval is received.