Customs Extends Humanitarian Visit To IDPs In Maiduguri

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) last weekend extended its humanitarian gesture to internally displace persons (IDPs) in Borno State.

The agency had last week shown same gesture to the IDPs in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, and promised to visit other states where residents have been displaced due to the Boko Haram onslaught.

Speaking while presenting the relief items to the Borno State Government in Maiduguri, the comptroller-general of customs, Abdullahi Dikko, explained that the relief materials were voluntarily donated by officers and men of the service with support from their wives, under the auspices of the Customs Officers Wives Association (COWA).

Dikko, who congratulated the governor and his deputy for their re-election, thanked the Borno State Government for the support given the customs command in the state despite the challenges it is undergoing, even as he emphasised that the items were donated by officers from their hearts.

“Today we are here to present to you some relief materials that were voluntarily donated by officers and men of the Nigeria Customs Service. This is coming from the heart of officers; they were not bought with government money. There are more than 71 different items from food stuff, clothing, shoes, medical needs, chocolates for children and so on,” Dikko, who was represented by the deputy comptroller general, Musa Tahir, said.

Stressing that the NCS feels the pain of the IDPs, he said, “They are our brothers, sisters and mothers, the NCS will work hand in hand with you in whatever way to assist you in alleviating their sufferings until they are returned back safely to their homes. We pray this situation will come to an end very soon so that our people will go back to their homes, and so that Borno State will take its pride of place among the states of Nigeria,” Tahir added.

Receiving the items on behalf of the people of Borno, the state governor, Kashim Shettima, thanked the NCS for the donation, describing it as very timely in view of the cost of catering for the displaced persons. He called on other agencies to emulate the NCS, saying, “I want to say a very big thank you to the NCS for this big contribution. These are personal contributions from them, it means that they feel what we feel here. I want to call on other services to emulate the NCS and find a way of getting to us the kind of donations the NCS has made to us today. I equally thank the military for their contribution through the liberation of the areas under siege,” he said.

He said that about 22 local government areas were sacked by insurgents in the state, resulting to over one million displaced persons who are currently being housed in 22 camps in the state. He described as enormous the cost of catering for the people, and reiterated that the donation from the NCS was very timely. The governor, who was represented by his deputy, Zanna Umar Mustapha, further stated that the Borno State Government has spent over N11 billion in the last four years catering for victims of insurgency, whereas it only got N200 million support from the federal government led by the former president Goodluck Jonathan within the period.

He said, “The people of Borno have suffered. Most of the people from the 22 local governments are here in Maiduguri. We have 22 camps where they are now living. All the secondary schools in the state have since been closed and they will remain closed because that is where we are taking care of the IDPs. 90 per cent of the houses in Bama were burnt down completely; schools, hospitals, roads, water and electricity supply were all destroyed. Bama is not an exception as we have same scenario in most of the communities there.”

Mustapha also disclosed that while the state battled to cater for the surging number of displaced people, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) were, during Jonathan’s administration, in and out of Borno without taking full charge of the humanitarian situation of the displaced persons. However, he said after the emergence of president Muhammadu Buhari, the NEMA management have come to the state to take over full responsibility of the situation.

“We thanked them very much as it is better late than never. Now that they have come to our aid Borno State Government have spent about N11 billion to cater for the people in the camp. It is not easy to feed them as well as those who live with their relations who come to feed at the camp. It is not even easy to feed 100 people but we are taking care of over one million people,” Mustapha stated.

The number of those the state is catering for, he said, swells by the day even as he disclosed the arrival of new people who were freed from Sambisa forest who, at the time of the visit, were being screened before entering the camp. He said that the state emergency management agency will do justice to the items donated by the customs by evenly distributing them to those at the camps.

Speaking further on the situation of the state, he said that there used to be five entering points into Borno but informed that there is presently one way to enter the state, which is through the Damaturu -Maiduguri road. All other entrance, he said, have since been closed due to security issues.

These challenges notwithstanding, Mustapha who expressed hope that the state would survive the crisis, said the situation would soon return to normalcy. He gladly announced the reopening of the Maiduguri International Airport which had been closed, adding that in the same vein all other roads into Maiduguri would soon be opened. Commending the military for their efforts at liberating the communities, Mustapha disclosed that about 97 per cent of communities have been liberated, stating that it is expected that Sambisa forest would fall very soon which will mean total liberation of the state.

While expressing gratitude and appreciation to the NCS for the relief items, he further solicited more help from service in the area of building schools and drilling bore holes in recovered communities as their wells have been contaminated by the remains of people killed and thrown into the wells by the insurgents.

“We ask the NCS to support us with the drilling of boreholes in some of our communities when our people return back home. We are grateful for what you have given us already but we will ask for more. Please kindly come back to us to do more things. It could be rebuilding of schools or boreholes.

Customs Extends Humanitarian Visit To IDPs In Maiduguri