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Yakubu Dogara
By Akanji Alowolodo, Bauchi
Immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives, Barrister Yakubu Dogara has declared Northern leaders including himself have failed the people of the region by not standing up to their defence.
He also described the IDP question as an indelible stain on Nigeria’s conscience considering the way and manner their welfare has been handled so far.
Yakubu Dogara made the assertion when he delivered a keynote address titled: ‘The IDP Question as a Stain On Nigeria’s Conscience’ at the 7th Henna Ball Awards Night Organized by TOZALI Magazine in Abuja.
He lamented saying, “I dare say that the conditions under which IDPs live are actually the conditions of the heart of their fellow citizens“.
He described Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as victims of violence fleeing from their homes or community but have not crossed an international border for safety saying that, “they are forced from their homes inside their own country. Therefore, they are in need of protection, shelter, food, non-food items (such as blankets) and camp coordination/camp management”.
He pointed out that, according to the UNCHR, Boko Haram and other non-state armed groups as well as clashes between herders and farmers have pushed some 3 million Nigerians (as of November 2021) out of their homes, especially in parts of North-East Nigeria and the country’s Middle Belt, but increasingly also in North-West Nigeria.
The protracted crises in this region has resulted into conflict-induced food insecurity and severe malnutrition which has not only raised some pertinent questions but has become a stain on Nigeria’s conscience.
On the situation in Nigeria, he said that, “If you look at the condition of Nigeria, especially the North East and you don’t feel the pains, you are the one that is sick. No thanks to the activities of these dishevelled terrorists or bandits”.
According to him, “The IDP question is more of a Northern phenomenon, although there are IDP camps scattered all over the country as a result of the parlous security situation in the Nation. Therefore, kindly bear with me, if I make conscious and deliberate effort to address this topic from the perspective of a Northerner”.
He further said that, “The night has fallen on Nigeria, especially the North. It’s a night so tepid for most of our people so much so that they crave cruel kindness – just something that has meaning even if its meaningless.
“Ever wondered what it means to be on a bilious race with no finish line or what it means when life becomes worse than death? To escape from this night that only stagnates for most of our people is like traveling on a highway that is well paved with spikes of steel or attempting to sail on a clay boat”, he added.
Yakubu Dogara further said that, “We all know that the North bears nearly 90% of the insecurity brunt of the country. If estimates are anything to go by, not less than 50,000 northerners have been killed while over 3 million have been displaced in the Northeast alone. No one has the record of Northern lives lost to rural banditry, the farmer-herder clashes and ethno-religious conflicts”.
He also said that, “The number grows exponentially when we add to this, death occasioned by urban violence unleashed by an increasing army of mostly jobless youths suffering from substance use disorder”.
The former Speaker stressed that, “added to the above is the threat posed by school dropouts and out of School children. According to global data on out-of-school children, Nigeria has now 20 million out of school children. The data further shows that 1 in every 5 out-of-school children is in Northern Nigeria and 60 percent of this number are found in the North”.
According to him, “When it comes to prosperity, the North has not fared well either. Even when the North was not under siege by terrorists, bandits and sundry criminals; we accounted for not less than 87% of the poverty burden in Nigeria. The data on malnutrition is even worse. How do we ensure our people develop mentally when we cannot feed them?
” It is like we are now trapped in a death spiral where large segments of our population are addicted to rage and lager segments are addicted to delirium. The rage is misdirected at a Government we wrongly believe is big enough to solve all our problems but unable to do so. We have discountenanced the very idea of a limited Government which is that, the government itself is limited and therefore limited in what it can do for us. It can do much but not so much. As difficult a message to sell but it is the raw truth”.
He said that, “Infantilised by perceived failure of relevant authorities to meet the demands of certain sections of society, some fringe elements have resorted to dark fantasies resulting into a collective self-delusion whereby they don’t know what they are against and do not also know what they are for.
“These elements have constituted themselves into terrorists and other non-state armed groups (NSAGs) whose activities is the unremitting orgy of violence the general public is subjected to almost daily. Although internal displacement in Nigeria may be attributed to layers of complex and often overlapping triggers and drivers, some of which we have highlighted above, unbridled mayhem still remains the major cause”, he added.
Talking on the plight of IDPs in Nigeria, he disclosed that findings showed that the major problems confronting displaced Nigerians are lack of food, problem of shelter, poor health care, poor access to education, and lack of access to clean water supply.
He further said that research after research have proven that displaced persons suffer significantly higher rates of mortality than the general population saying that, “As if that is not enough, there have been public outcry regarding rampant cases of physical violence, sexual assault and abduction unleashed on IDPs across all the camps in Nigeria.
“The stories are so deprecating to a point that we have turned ourselves into a world wide object of ridicule. Of all the heart rending stories, it is the plight of women IDPs that bother me the most. It is said that, “sex crimes are a serious problem because they violate personal freedoms, traumatise the victim, and often lead to undesired pregnancy, unsafe abortions and complications tied to early childbearing age, or even death”.
He lamented further that most IDPs are forced to do unthinkable things just to survive. Since women significantly outnumber men and nearly all are either the de facto and/or de jure heads of their households having lost their husbands and breadwinners to the crises that drove them to the camps, you can only imagine the pressure on such women to do all within their means in order to earn extra income to support their families.
“This is one major cause of the accentuating cases of exposure of women and girls in the Camps to sexual abuse. There are also abounding reports of women and girls being coerced by male residents and security personnel to provide sexual services as guarantee for protection or extension of favours”.
