For more than five years, home has remained a distant memory for many internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in camps in Benue, and Borno, where the hope of returning to their ancestral communities grows increasingly uncertain with each passing day. Weekend Trust highlights the plights of these IDPs.
Why we haven’t returned home – Benue IDPs
In Benue State, thousands of internally displaced persons have remained in camps for more than five years and unwilling to return to their ancestral homes for fear of being killed as persistent insecurity has continued t, hindering their safe return home.
Jacob Ibaah, one of thousands of the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) staying at the Agagbe camp in Gwer West Local Government Area of Benue after it was formally opened in 2021, stayed in different make-shift homes after their displacement from their homes by armed invaders.
‘The displacement started in my community in 2003. I remember vividly that I was in secondary school when the armed men first came and attacked us. Since then it has been off and on; we tried to go back but we are attacked again. In 2021, the government formally established the Agagbe camp where we are now.
‘We haven’t returned to our villages because those who tried it were killed. Others barely escaped with life threatening injuries,’ Ibaah said.
Dooshima Tyohem, another displaced person, and a mother of two at the Abagana camp along Makurdi – Lafia road in Benue State, noted that she had been displaced from her home since 2018.
‘We can’t go back home because it’s dangerous to do so,’ she said.
Similarly, Esther Francis, displaced from her Guma village to living in the Abagana camp, lamented that returning home remains a far-fetched dream for most people like her because it still wasn’t safe just as there are no houses to return to.
Francis said, ‘We are eager to return to our ancestral homes but it’s not safe. Men are still being killed as they try to go back to their farms while women are raped. Besides, the promised reconstruction of our destroyed communities by government is yet to be fulfilled.’ She said.
For Jessica Mbaneneen Halavaan, who has spent eight years at Ugba camp in Logo LGA, the situation in her village remains volatile for any resident to think of returning.
‘We can’t dare go back home. Any thought of doing so is a suicide mission,’ she replied to our correspondent.
Anita Tsavwua, a displaced teenager at Anyiin camp in Logo said they fled their homes at Tombu council ward in 2018 after initial attacks which began in 2014.
She noted that her village till date remains deserted because the attackers have occupied the area, making it difficult for her parent to return home.
‘There is nobody in my village, and we can’t go back because the attackers are still killing people on the road. Recently, a village close to ours was attacked and people were killed,’ she said.
A former Camp chairman of Tse-Yandev, Gabriel Yev, who had been in camp since 2020 lamented the plights of IDPs, noting that they are compelled by situation to live in the camps because anyone who tries to go back to their homes are usually killed by the attackers.
‘In the past, two of my younger ones went to check their farms because they cultivated their maize when the rainy season started before they were chased away from the village.
‘They went to see if they could get something to eat because there was no food in the camp for us to eat at the time. As they went there, they were caught alive, taken away and after some days, the gunmen who abducted them called and informed the father that his children were killed and he should go and pick their corpses, adding that while coming he should be prepared to fight. So, there was no way for us to retrieve the corpses,’ Yev said.
In the same vein, Damian Samuel, who has lived with five members of his family including his wife for six years now at the IDPs camp situated along Uniagric road in North Bank, Makurdi, said they really want to go back to their ancestral homeland.
‘There is no place like home but we can go back yet. Our community is not safe,’ he said.
Similarly, Abuugh Terese, 13, said, ‘I’m orphaned by the crisis. My mother and father were killed in the farm at our village in Ayanse in Yande – Moon district of Turan. We want government to send more security to quell the crisis so we can go back home.
Terese added, ‘Our community is still deserted and not safe for return.’
Also, Tsokaa Orngu, 8, a primary 4 pupil whose family was displaced from Kumakwugh council ward, appeals to government to provide security to enable them return home so that his father can resume farming activities in order to pay school fees and provide food for his household.
Little Oche Solomon from Agatu and many other children from the affected trio LGAs, whose family were displaced also seek government’s intervention so they can go back to their ancestral homes.
Awuhe Solomon, 35, a gunshot survivor when his village in Turan ward was attacked by the invaders now bears a health issue on his thigh below his abdomen but seek the intervention of government for people to return to their homes.
Solomon, a father of six children said his wife left him following the hardship which befell his family after their displacement, as he disclosed that he lost a total of 15 persons during the attack and now left with only four surviving siblings including himself.
‘I beg for food to survive. Look up there (pointing at a particular direction) is the road to my village but we can’t go beyond that place you can sight it from here because our killers are everywhere there. I’m afraid of my future and that if my children,’ he cried out.
In the same vein, retired Comptroller of Prisons, Chief Iorbee Ihagh, stressed the need for the President to direct the military to clear the state of bandits for farmers to return to their farms while the internally displaced persons return to their homes.
‘I’m also an IDP – our five council wards in Turan land were ransacked and taken over by the armed herders. As we speak for over 10 years, we have no access to Moon where I come from and where my parents were buried. Even when my wife died recently, we had no access to take her body there for burial so I buried her in Jato Aka.
‘I blame the federal government for the continuing insecurity. The solution remains with the federal government. The government should be clear on its directive – drive out the foreigners from our land so my people can go back to their homes,’ Ihagh maintained.
Only few days ago, the Executive Secretary of State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Sir James Iorpuu, told journalists in Makurdi that the agency was working with humanitarian partners, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to provide resettlement facilities for the IDPs.
Iorpuu mentioned that approximately 110 displaced persons had been moved to an area identified as Akile, where they were expected to receive shelter and engage in farming to rebuild their livelihoods.
He further mentioned approximately 288 hectares of land reportedly provided by the state governor for resettlement purposes.
The SEMA chief said the initiatives were intended to decongest IDP camps, promote self-reliance and facilitate the eventual return of displaced persons to their ancestral communities when security conditions permitted.
‘Our homes still not liberated’
Similarly, in Borno, the case remains the same for many displaced persons. Despair deepens for IDPs in Maiduguri’s self-established camps years after fleeing their ancestral homes from the onslaught of Boko Haram insurgents, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living in the Shuwari and Shagari low-cost camps in Maiduguri say they are trapped in a cycle of neglect, despair, and deteriorating security. Displaced primarily from the Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State, the IDPs report that despite ongoing military campaigns, their hometowns remain under the control of terrorists, leaving them with no safe path to return and no alternative relocation provided by the government. John Goma, Chairman of the EYN IDP camp, a government-registered facility currently housing 1,225 people across 385 households spoke candidly about the harsh realities of camp life. ‘We don’t even like to stay in the camp anymore, because life in this place is hell,’ Goma said. ‘I always appeal through the media for the federal government to reclaim our area so that we can return, but things are deteriorating instead.’ He said.
According to Goma, the overstretched use of official facilities like the EYN camp forced many desperate families to establish unofficial settlements, such as those in Shuwari and Shagari. Hundreds of vulnerable women, children, and elderly now reside in these unassisted enclaves.
‘They are on their own, and don’t receive any intervention from the government, and just like all of us here, can’t go back to their communities due to the insecurity of the area,’ Goma added.
For those living in the informal camps, the daily struggle for survival has taken a heavy toll on family structures and social values. Mary Joseph, an IDP at the Shuwari camp, described being cramped into fragile trampoline huts with little to no food to feed her children.
‘Ever since we came into this camp, our children have turned against our values; they don’t listen to us anymore,’ Joseph lamented, fighting back tears.
‘They realised that we have nothing to give them. We can’t feed them, we can’t pay their school fees, or take care of their needs.’ Joseph noted that the breakdown of parental control has left young girls vulnerable, with some failing to return home at night. ‘That is why we always appeal to the government to liberate our areas and make the place safe for us to return and raise our children on our own terms.’
Another displaced resident, Peter Timothy, accused authorities of abandoning them to their fate. He called on the federal government to intensify military operations to flush insurgents out of Gwoza and surrounding communities.
Voicing deep frustration over unfulfilled security promises, Timothy asked, ‘Forget the government promises, now what happened to the pupils of Mussa and Lassa that were abducted by the insurgents?
Tell me. And these communities are relatively secure compared to our deserted villages.’ He emphasized that living in the camp was not a choice, but a desperate necessity dictated by survival.
‘We have nobody to help us here, living a very difficult and helpless life in the camp, but we have no option.’ A 32-year-old Thabita Joseph, said she has been living in the camp for 15 years after Boko Haram terrorists displaced them from Ngoshe town.
‘Boko Haram displaced us from our village. I have three children to take care of, and now that the Harmattan cold is approaching we and the children will suffer through the season.
‘As it is now, our children need food, blankets, mats, and more but the government and even the NGOs have stopped their interventions. Very few organizations like the rescue are still helping us,’ said Joseph Another IDP Ilya Peter said, ‘Actually the weather will soon be really harsh but there is nothing we can do. Our prayer is for God to answer our prayers to return to our villages. Now our children have cold and severe fever and we can’t even afford to buy them warm clothes,’. Surayya John, a mother and a housewife, also said she spent over a decade in the camp but life in the camp is everyday turning from bad to worse.
‘Since the time we left our homes and farmlands, food has become a serious problem to all of us, and it has become a problem for us to feed and clothes our children. ‘Our children stopped going to school, some of them started following men who often gave them money and engaged in illicit affairs with them. ‘For that reason, the majority of us are now hypertensive because our husbands have no jobs and we have no means of supporting them. As the insurgency continues to cast a long shadow over northeastern Nigeria, the IDPs in Maiduguri’s margins remain steadfast in a single, urgent plea: for the government to reclaim their lands so they can finally rebuild their lives.