Alhaji Muhammad Sani-Sidi, Director General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), has debunked the 3.3 million figure of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) released by Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
Sani-Sidi disputed the figure when he received a delegation from USAID in Nigeria led by Mission Director Michael Harvey in Abuja on Tuesday.
He put the number of IDPs from insurgency and natural disasters in the country at 981,416.
The director general, who said the report by IDMC was fraudulent and baseless, said the agency was ready to challenge the claim.
“IDMC has put together the figures of displaced persons in Nigeria in the past 10 years just to be able to raise funds. It is very fraudulent and we are not going to be quiet about it’”, he said.
The director general said the meeting with the USAID team was timely and important as it provided a platform for NEMA to discuss the inconsistent figure.
He told the team that there had been inconsistent figures on the pages of newspapers, internet and international media.
According to him, the agency welcomes the offer by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to carry out assessment of displaced persons in the country.
“A week before Christmas, IOM requested to make presentations of their findings and we have been vindicated that all these figures that they have been brandishing around are not correct.
“They came up with a figure which is not quite different from the figure that was released by NEMA’’, he said.
He further stated that most organisations inflate the figures of IDPS in the country in order to fraudulently get financial aid from donor agencies.
”These issues are being complicated by Non-Governmental Organisations which you finance, because there have to be large displacements before they attract your funding’’, Sani-Sidi said.
He commended USAID’s contribution to the IDPs and thanked the team for seeking synergy with NEMA for better coordination.
Earlier, Harvey said the team was in NEMA to seek partnership on better coordination of IDPs and plans to proffer possible solutions.
He said the US government had provided a considerable amount of humanitarian assistance in very close coordination with State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs) in the north east.
Similarly, the NEMA boss in a meeting with the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict in Nigeria said special attention had been paid to children in IDP camps.
He said government had taken children, women, the elderly and vulnerable persons into special considerations in addressing the issues of IDPs.
Sani-Sidi said that NEMA was also working with security agencies to increase surveillance in the camps to avoid violation of women.
According to him, children accounted for 41 per cent of the IDPs, adding that government had made efforts to protect them.
He said government had also made provision to ensure that the children continued their education while in camps through the Safe School Initiative.
Mrs Leila Zerroigui, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflicts, said she was willing to work with NEMA to address violence against children.
According to her, it is important to come together to have comprehensive and sustainable actions to deal with the issues.
She expressed the desire to work with the Nigerian Government in supporting and conveying the message to donor agencies on the need to join the fight against violation of children.
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