The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has so far distributed food items to the doorsteps of about 10,433 Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in Taraba State in the North Eastern part of Nigeria.
The leader of NEMA team and deputy director, rescue and relief, Sanusi Ado, made the disclosure at the IDPs camp in Mutum Biyu in Gassol Local Government Area on Friday, September 29, 2017.
Mr. Ado said the programme was in continuation of the distribution flagged off by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in Maiduguri in June this year.
He said that the measure was aimed at making sure that middlemen were removed from the distribution of relief materials to IDPs to the barest minimum to prevent diversion.
The deputy director said the agency was giving out 50kg of maize, 25kg of Sorghum and 25 kg of beans to each household across the nine local government areas of the state.
Mr. Ado said that the agency was committed to ensuring that the IDPs have some of their basic needs especially their nutritional requirements.
He assured that all the 10,433 enumerated IDPs in the state would get the commodity delivered to them directly by NEMA officials.
The leader of the IDP camp, Umar Shuaibu, said that the gesture was a huge relief as food had become a major challenge for most of the IDPs in the camp.
Mr. Shuaibu said that the IDPs were still in dire need of medical supplies as some of them who were sick could not afford medical bills.
He urged the government to expedite actions for the safe return of the displaced people to their homes as the life in the camps affected not only the quality of their lives but also their self-esteem and the future of their children.
Mr. Shuaibu appealed to other groups and persons to reach out to the IDPs especially in providing education for the children in the camp who have almost lost hope of going to school again.
One of the beneficiaries and octogenarian, Hauwa Ibrahim, told NAN that since she came to the camp over three years ago, this was the first time such quantity of relief materials was given to her.
Mr. Hauwa appreciated the officials for taking out time to get to each of them in their houses and pleaded with the government to make arrangement for them to return to their homes.
NAN reports that most of the over 3,000 IDPs in the camp were displaced from Wukari during the communal clashes that almost left the whole town in ruins in 2013.
