By Samuel Malik

The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, has announced that it is taking full responsibility for the provision of food items to people displaced by Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State. These are made up of those living in camps run by the state government and those sheltered by members of host communities. This, NEMA explained, is to ensure proper management of the food items.

The emergency agency, in a statement, released by its spokesperson, Manzo Ezekiel, said the Federal Government decided to take responsibility, following the state government’s appeal to it.

“Before now, Borno State government augmented the supply of foodstuffs by NEMA, but the state government made an appeal to the Federal Government through NEMA to take full responsibility for the feeding of the IDPs.

“This decision was taken after a meeting between a delegation of the National Emergency Management Agency top officials to assess the situation in the camps in Maiduguri with the Deputy Governor of Borno State Umar Zanna Mustapha, Chairman of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Grema Terab, and other stakeholders to improve the welfare of the IDPs,” the statement read.

When the camps were visited, NEMA said it discovered that the problem was not the availability of food, but its management. Thus, the state and federal governments agreed to collaborate, with each bringing something to the table.

However, the state government will now provide cooking utensils, condiments, firewood, cooks and other facilities, including sanitary items, as well as provide more camp sites for those desperately in need of temporary shelters and care. More toilet facilities will also be provided by the state government for the IDPs.

Borno State, the worst hit by insurgency, has 22 camps housing about 100, 000 internally displaced persons, with several thousand others squatting in the communities with either relatives or sympathisers.