Expdonaloaded News; Boko Haram: IDPs in N’East hit 5m- Dogara

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has said about 5 million Nigerians have been displaced by activities of Boko Haram in the North East.Dogara made the revelation when he received the head of the  United Nations High Commission for Refugees (NHCR), Ms. Angel Dekonge Antangara in his office in Abuja.
“As an indigene of the North East, it is safe to say the number of IDPs in Nigeria can be up to five million. The NHCR deals with symptoms of terrorism which is the displacement,” he said.
As Speaker,  Dogara said he had sponsored a motion calling the attention of the President, Muhammadu Buhari to the plight of IDPs, with the hope of working together to bring about a lasting solution through the engagement of international donor conference for the plight of those in the NorthEast.
He appealed for help from anywhere including bodies as UNHCR and added: “Terrorism is global and if not dealt with, it would spill across borders such as the current refugee crisis facing Europe from Syria, Libya etc.
“The Committee on Public Safety and National Intelligence will be mandated to handle issues relating to IDPs for now. If they are overwhelmed however, a substantive Committee for IDPs will be looked into. The House is ready to partner all relevant bodies committed to ending the evil that produces refugees, IDPs and the events of statelessness.”
On the issue of domesticating the resolutions of the refugee conventions, the Speaker said  the House would partner with the Senate to ensure that those important treaties and conventions were ratified  through the relevant committees when constituted.
Speaking earlier, Ms. Angel Dekonge Antangara told the Speaker that the office is providing solutions both locally and worldwide. The UNHCR, according to her, intervenes for people termed as stateless or borderless and that she was in Nigeria to look at the Memorandum of Understanding  UNHCR has with the country.
“Nigeria has 2.1 Million IDPs (Nigerians). There is the Kampala convention of 2001 and enacted in 2009 which Nigeria played a pivotal role for the convention and hosted meetings in 2006 and 2011 so that it could be ratified in 2012.
“I hope Nigeria will sustain its pioneer role in the security and resettlement of IDPs as well as Parliamentary input to sensitizing on the right of IDPs as human beings,” she stated.
Ms.  Antangara said that the existing draft from the IDPs convention should be domesticated and that  a committee should be set up to take care of refugees as well as IDPs.
“This issue warrants serious Parliamentary attention. UNHCR is ready to provide technical and even financial support to organize events to sensitize Members on the way forward in preventing and resetting IDPs when they occur.
“UNHCR requires Parliamentary involvement against Statelessness as this is a State which the UN continues to fight against. Again, the UNHCR is prepared to partner in creating an enlightening studies to prevent Statelessness especially in the Bakassi and other areas so they do not fall into Statelessness,” she said.
On her part, the director general of the National Counc for Women Society (NCWD), Onyeka Onwenu, said the relationship between UNHCR and NCWD started with the world refugee day and that the issue of girl child cannot be extricated from IDPs and refugees as women and girls are some of the most direct victims of the insurgents.