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From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Federal Government has disclosed plans to repatriate over 4,982 Nigerians from Cameroon, explaining that 3,224 refugees would settle in Banki town while 1,758 of them would reside in Bama town, Borno State.
The Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), Senator Basheer Mohammed Lado, stated this in a statement.
Lado explained that the return of the refugees would be in line with the commission’s ongoing resettlement cities project, which would shelter thousands of displaced persons in a two-bedroom housing units across some states, consisting of primary health care and education centres, security outposts, worship houses, skill acquisition centres, markets and adjoining farmlands for use by the occupants.
Represented by the Commission’s Director of Refugee and Migration, Tai Hassan Ejibunu, he said: “Following President Muhammadu Buhari’s explicit instructions that all Nigerian refugees in Cameroon be returned back home safely.We have a total of 4, 982 to be returned hopefully 3,224 to Banki Town and 1758 to Bama Town.”
He said Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), Senator Basheer Garba Mohammed Lado met with officials of the Cameroonian government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Maroua, Cameroon, over the weekend.
“The meeting, which is a follow-up of meetings in 2017 initiated by the then commissioner and now minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouk, also led to the successful return of 134 Nigerians from Cameroon.”
Lado, who doubles as the Chairman, Technical Working Group (TWG) of Nigeria on the voluntary repatriation of Nigerian refugees, said the TWGs’ meeting was a forerunner to the Tripartite Commission (TC) meeting scheduled to hold this week.
Meanwhile, beneficiaries of the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons’ (NCFRMI) Project Reliance have narrated how important the project would be in restoring their lives of dignity and ending their hardship.
Some of the beneficiaries, who spoke during the registration exercise in Batsari, one of the eight frontline area councils of Katsina State, said, they live in displaced persons’ camps for many years with no means of livelihood.
Fatima Garba, one of the beneficiaries and a displaced widow said, her husband and eldest son were killed by bandits during an attack on their village and she has lived in a displaced camp since then with four children, whom she caters for on palliatives from the govt.
Another beneficiary, Binta Kabir, commended the exercise and stated that it would help her in taking care of nine children whose father’s whereabout is unknown after a bandits’ attack on her village in Kadisau.
An elderly beneficiary, Bashir Kadisau, expressed optimism that the commission’s project reliance’s capital would help him revive his grain business that was destroyed during a bandits’ attack on his village of Kadisau.
