The Borno Government announced on Thursday that it had abolished the Committee for the Feeding of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the State.
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This followed a protest by some displaced persons over poor feeding.
Aid agencies have over the weeks sounded the alarm that thousands of IDPs were in the grip of starvation amidst allegations of diversion of relief materials by corrupt federal and state government officials overseeing distribution of these items.
Reports just coming in say Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Maidugurl, Borno State, in their thousands have left their camps and poured unto the streets of the city and now blocking the city’s main entry point, causing a gridlock along the Kano Maiduguri Expressway.
The State Deputy governor, Usman Durkwa, accompanied by the state police commissioner, Demian Chukwu, arrived the scene to plead with the IDPs after about three hours of protest.
Mr Durkwa said that each family would now get its food stuffs and cook themselves.
Durkwa, who described the protest as unfortunate, said that the government would not allow greed and self interests to impede efforts to assist the IDPs.
“We are hungry and we don’t want any feeding committee again because they are not giving us quality food”.
Although the organization did not disclose in which IDP camps this dastardly act is taking place, it says it is a “low-key” affair that even the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons, NAPTIP, is yet to be aware of. Only the arrival of the deputy governor calmed the protesters.
He said: “The IDPs were instigated by some outsiders trying to cause havoc in town with the intent to steal”.
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The organization also claimed that there was evidence that government officials and leaders of groups operate an elaborate system through which they smuggle children out of IDP camps to make money and parents are forced to keep quiet through threats that they would be kicked out of camp into the waiting hands of Boko Haram insurgents.
