Boko Haram Escapees Face Hard Times In Oyo

WHEN scores of internally displaced persons from North East zone of the country escaped the hostilities of Boko Haram insurgents and took refuge in Ibadan, they thought all would be well with them. But after their escape, some of them are blaming themselves for fleeing the Boko Haram battleground saying if they had known life would be this difficult, they would have chosen another option.

Apart from dying of hunger due to lack of jobs for them, they have no shelter where they can lay their heads. To worsen their case, some residents of Oluyole Estate, Mobil, Ajeigbe and Orita-Challenge areas of Ibadan metropolis see them as security threats even though they have not displayed any trait of violence since they came over a year ago.

Apart from influx of the internally displaced people that is a source of worry for the chairman of Ibadan South/West Local Government, Mr. Gbenga Opaleye, their concentration in his local government is another problem. He expressed fear about the rate at which the people are gathering at different spots, mostly without shelter. He said, “While I was interviewing some of the Hausa men during my visit to where they gather around Oluyole Estate, Mobil, Ajeigbe and Orita-Challenge, most of them claimed to have escaped from Boko Haram ravaged zones like Gwoza, Yobe, Adamawa.”

Opaleye said he had to call leaders of the Hausa communities in the council area to a roundtable discussion, where some assurances were made that peace would reign. He assured residents of the areas of their safety having put in place some security measures. Sometime this year, the displaced people called on their state governor in Borno and Oyo State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, to arrange transportation for them to help them return to their homes.

The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are currently in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital are now pleading earnestly with the Federal Government, Oyo and Borno State governments to provide them free transportation back home. The refugees who are in dire need of help comprise adults and children, women, Muslims and Christians. According to them, it has been an unpleasant experience for the past three years since they ran for their lives from the hotbed of Boko Haram insurgency.

Speaking through their Chairman and Secretary, Mr Philemon Obadiah Aga and Mallam Amada Usman respectively, they said “even though Oyo State has been a good and hospitable host state”, they have found it extremely difficult to survive because they can’t find jobs to do to eke out a living. “Since we came, we have been having feeding and health challenges coupled with malnutrition while our children cannot be enrolled in schools. They are at the mercy of some kind-hearted people”.

They added that accommodation problem had further compounded their plights noting that over 10 people squeeze themselves in some uncompleted buildings where security operatives incessantly swoop on them and effect indiscriminate arrests. To prove their innocence, Vanguard gathered that the hapless people had once taken a person who they suspected could be a Boko Haram member to the police.

While commending President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for its success so far in the fight against the insurgents especially in the Southern Borno Senatorial District where the majority of them hail from, they pleaded with the Federal Government as well as Oyo and Borno State Governments to assist in providing logistics for their evacuation back home. They said, “We have resolved to go back home and begin our lives anew without further delay, as we strongly believe that home is home, whatever the circumstances.”

 

 

Source: Vanguard