They are seen in shanties, made from torn sacks, woven together and erected with sticks of about three metres. While the males were seen under a tree which was considered a relaxation spot where they played games of cards, the women and children were seen in groups behind available shades somberly reliving their experiences. Some were still tending wounds sustained while fleeing, including gunshot wounds, while many were ready to show scars of injuries inflicted on them.
They have not been provided camps by the government but they on their own, erected what passes for a shelter. In their makeshift abode, they venture into many things to survive: some drive cars, others engage in menial jobs to ensure they survive to the next day.
“They are not living in a hygienic, human setting. They use Bagco bags, patch one to another to barricade some space just like a hut and they sleep there, women and children. Normal human beings do not sleep like that,” the Abuja Operating Office of the National Emergency Management Agency, Isah Chonoko, said while explaining the new lifestyle of the displaced persons.
This group of people, majority of them from Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State and some other states like Adamawa are in several places within the territory seeking refuge as internally displaced persons.
In Waru, after Apo mechanic village, in the Abuja Municipal Area Council, some of the IDPs have stayed so long that they can now rent rooms to stay in, having been engaged in one menial job or the other. They are scattered around the village. While at Sabo Kuchingoro, some are without relatives and a few recall seeing their loved ones slain or captured.
Musa Yakubu escaped but with a gunshot injury on his stomach. While fleeing the insurgents when his village was attacked and houses set ablaze, he hid in a bush before making it to the nearest village, where herbal drugs was administered on the wound.
Afterwards, through friends, he made his way to Abuja. Though Yakubu escaped with gunshot wound his family was saved, Susan Yakubu was fortunate to be without wounds but the insurgents captured her parents and five siblings, killing some in her presence.
She said the troops “sliced them like meat, and for the females they raped them and also took them captive. Some of them managed to run away to different places.”
She said she made it to the FCT with the help of friends, adding that things have not been easy where they are with children, the sick and shelter not good enough.
“I was in the village on that fateful day when these gun men came, my husband, I and my seven children all escaped. It was difficult because I was pregnant. From my hideout, I saw how these gunmen killed my parents and my siblings, but there was nothing I could do. We hid in a cave for some days before traveling to many places and finally settling here. I gave birth in this tent,” another displaced person, Hawa Musa, recounted.
James Haruna, from Argboko, Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State, said they came to Abuja because his village was burnt. “They pursued us out of our village and everybody ran to different directions. We don’t know where our parents are now.”
He said since he left his village on December 20, 2013, some of his family members have been relocating to Abuja gradually. He said people also came from other villages including Mubi, Michika, Karwa, Ashigashia, Gboko, Shinene, among others.
“We are about 3,500 here. I am driving a taxi which I bought here,” he said, explaining how he survives along with some of his friends while he said some churches, Islamic groups and humanitarian agencies do bring food items.
“Nobody will want to stay here. We will love to go to our villages but we can’t. See the place we are now forced to stay,” he said.
Gideon Y. Ashifa said he is from Bandustse, in Gwoza LGA and fled the village with only few things. He sought shelter in Cameroun but said it was not a better place, as there was no freedom unlike being in Nigeria. “Some of our family members are still there suffering and dying.”
He said the federal government should help and put necessary security in place so that they can return to their houses. “People only assist us with food,” he said saying it is not the best of life. Another person from Gwoshe in Gwoza stayed four months in the mountains, “we survived by the grace of God, sometimes the water may finish and rain will fall, people are scattered,” he said.
He said since July that his village was ransacked, he has been to many places including a camp for displaced persons in Jos. “Our people here called us to come and join them. So we just joined them, I was directed through phone,” he said explaining how he left Jos.
“That camp is better than this; I thought this place is better. Many of us here have no food to eat, some are doing work, and some have nothing to do,” he added.
He said for those that are without a job, they rely on friends. “We buy water, food,” he said adding that he just got wind of his family members days ago since July. “Aside, my brother that was said to have been slaughtered others are fine.
“They burnt everything, packed properties and chased the people out. They followed them to the mountains. They will spray tear gas and those people hiding under the rock if they come out they kill them. They took the women with them,” he said, explaining the treatment meted to them.
Meanwhile, Zonal Coordinator of the Abuja Operating Office of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Isah Chonoko, said it is no longer news that they have insurgency in the North East. He said some people fled the zone to the direction of safety, even to other countries.
Explaining likely means the displaced persons made their way to the FCT, he said with the mobile phones, communication is easier and faster. “You will know that before you came to Abuja there are some of your town’s people or your relatives here so as a result of what is happening, generally some people begin to call their relatives. That was how they started coming to Abuja one by or twos, unlike the case of natural disaster,” he said.
He, however, faulted the choice of places of settling of the displaced persons, saying the place was once demolished but structures were erected by some “perpetual law breakers,” when they relocated to Abuja.
“If it were to be a mass movement, government would have noticed and set up a place where they can be looked after pending when the situation in their villages returns to normal. Their movement was as calm as possible, no government agency is providing for them as IDPs,” he said.
While the IDPs said some of them have stayed in Abuja for almost a year now, Chonoko said he came to know of their presence only about two months ago.
“It was through one of the Catholic churches which has a group that evangelises. We got to know about them when a group invited us on November 18. The IDPs may be here four years ago, I do not know but I got to know they exist through a humanitarian group,” he stressed.
He, however, said since the agency got to know about their presence, they went into action immediately, donating several relief materials worth millions of naira to them.
He said knowing the actual number of displaced people in the FCT is difficult due to their rate of movement and dispersed nature of living.
“We can do a headcount but before you finish you might have to start afresh because you will see people arriving. He said when relief materials are to be distributed they come in large number. When you ask them, they will say they are over 1000.”
He said the activities of the agency have attracted philanthropists, NGOs and organisations to provide assistance for them.
While proffering a way out of the situation, he did not fail to explain that some people have taken advantage of the situation, claiming to be IDPs though they were not displaced.
“The way out is just to move these people back to where they are coming from, now they are adding pressure to the already populated Abuja which on daily basis with or without crisis everybody wants to come to Abuja.
“The government of the states should devise a means of establishing a temporary settlement closer home than remaining here. If you go and have a one-on-one discussion with some of them, particularly the genuine ones, they will tell you they want to go home. They are praying that one day they will wake up and have a reason to go back. But the non-genuine ones will never want to,” he said.
He said NEMA, as a humanitarian organisation, has carried out its mandate. “Nobody knows that they are coming, so now we are trying to manage their immediate needs, they have where they are sleeping irrespective of the state of the place. They did not come to Abuja in an organised manner to enable appropriate agencies to organise for them.
“The influx of these people is on hourly basis now that I am talking to you some group of people just arrived. When chatting with them they said some people are on their way while some are in Cameroon and they still want to come.
“Many Nigerians were evacuated from Libya and when we brought them here, we gave them transportation to go to their various states because we are in contact with the various states but I think there is nothing wrong if the government can arrange alternative and secure places to keep people for it has many implications,” he said.
On the other hand, some residents have expressed displeasure at the rate of movement of the IDPs to the territory, saying the nation might be “sitting on broken bottles.”
One of the residents in Galadimawa, simply referred to as Jude said it is important that the government sifts genuine IDPs from the fake ones. “Not only because of relief materials but also because of safety, some of them could be with ulterior motives,” he said.
Pending a lasting solution as the crises in the North East deepens, several people have been dislodged from their villages, forced to seek refuge in other places, while many have been killed. The insurgents declared Gwoza, the capital of an ‘Islamic Caliphate’ when they overran it recently.
Sabon Kuchingoro is the village with the highest number of internally displaced persons within the FCT.
