FG to repatriate 10,000 Nigerians stranded in Cameroon, 7,000 from Niger

The Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), Tijani Ahmed, has said the federal government will soon repatriate about 10,000 stranded Nigerians from the Republic of Cameroon.

Speaking at the weekend in Abuja, when he visited some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps across Abuja to distribute relief materials, he said about 7,000 stranded Nigerians in Niger and Sudan would be repatriated to Nigeria as well.

The camps visited were Durumi, Wassa and Karshi.

Items distributed included bags of rice, cartons of spaghetti, condiments, stationeries, pairs of school sandals, whiteboards, dusters, school bags, plastic chairs and tables, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, sprayers and irrigation pumps.

He also donated N1 million at the Wassa camp for those in need of healthcare treatment.

Ahmed said foreigners in Nigeria who would love to be repatriated back to their countries would be repatriated as well.

He noted that the government was also making plans to relocate IDPs and other vulnerable groups to permanent resettlement camps across the country.

He said IDPs who would be relocated to permanent camps across the country including Nasarawa, Katsina, Kano, Zamfara, Borno and Edo states, would be trained on various skills and acquisitions so that they would be entrepreneurs.

Ahmed said the government would expand the permanent camp in structure and capacity, and also build more permanent camps across the country so that each camp can accommodate about 10 – 20 thousand IDPs.

He disclosed that the temporary camps and communities were currently accommodating over 12,000 IDPs from Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.

“We have about 2,700 IDPs in Durumi camp; we have over 7000 people in Wassa, and in New Karshi, we have nothing less than 2000 of them,” he said.

Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.