Displaced Nigerians Face Hard Times

Daily Champion (Lagos)
NEWS
January 5, 2004
Posted to the web January 5, 2004

By Raymond Gukas
Lagos
DISPLACED Nigerians whose villages were ceded to Cameroon territories within
the Lake Chad region in Borno State, are facing hard times as the committee set
up to resettle them is yet to do so.
Daily Champion gathered in Maiduguri, the state capital that the displaced
villagers are now languishing in an open field in the state since they have
vacated their previous villages.
The Federal Government recently reconstituted a 10-member resettlement
committee which has Governor Ali Sheriff as chairman and it was mandated to
start compensation and resettlement work immediately.
But Daily Champion learnt that the impact of the committee is yet to be felt by
the affected communities as they have nowhere to go to except an open field.
The displaced villagers, mostly women and children who are exposed to the harsh
weather in the open field, it was gathered, are likely to develop ill health
due to the dust and cold "which are becoming unbearable for them."
Most of those in the open field are of the Kanuri, Shuwa, Hausa, Fulani, Igbo,
Yoruba, Chibok and Margi tribes who are believed to have lived in the ceded
areas for over three decades.
Daily Champion gathered from Kukawa local government, that villagers from the
former pennisular which is said to be rich in fish and is now ceded to
Cameroun, have arrived an open field with no official to provide sleeping mats
or blankets and other toiletries for their immediate use.

   

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