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From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
Barely 24 hours after Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu paid a condolence visit to Benue State and donated N1 billion, the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from different camps, including the one at Yelewata community in Guma Local Government Area, have staged a protest demanding that the money be given to them immediately.
The displaced persons numbering thousands barricaded both lanes of the Benue-Nasarawa Federal Highway, at Yeelwata, chanting songs and demanding to be decamped to go back to their ancestral homes.
The protesters, who left travellers stranded for hours, expressed frustrations over alleged hardships, ill treatments and starvation by the state government.
The IDPs, comprising women and girls were seen bearing leaves in their hands lamenting the continued killings of their people by herdsmen militia.
The protesters who carried placards bearing inscriptions such as, ‘We want to go back home,’ ‘We are hungry,’ ‘Our women are losing their babies and pregnancies’ and ‘Our people are being killed,” among others, said the protest was meant to draw attention to the severe hunger and inhuman treatment they have suffered at the camp.
“We have problems. Our problems are that we are hungry, we don’t have food to eat, we have nowhere to sleep.
“Our children are crying over hunger and many women who are pregnant have all lost their pregnancies because of hunger and no access to medical treatments.
“Also, many of these pregnant women have nowhere to sleep, they are sleeping on bare floors and no hospital for them to attend antenatal. There are no drugs, no professionals at the camp to consult. These are some of our problems,” one of the IDPs, Rebecca Awuse, told newsmen.
But Technical Adviser to Governor Hyacinth Alia on Media, Strategic Communication and Publicity, Solomon Iorpev said the protest was politically motivated.
“If not so, the wife of President Tinubu, Senator Oluremi just gave the cheque on Tuesday which is yet to be cleared and cashed for the purpose it was meant. Today, IDPs have blocked the Makurdi – Lafia- Abuja Highway demanding for the money.”
Iorpev said Governor Alia was interested in ensuring the welfare of the vulnerable groups in the state and would be the last person to think of diverting money meant for the less privileged.
He urged politicians to close ranks to move the state forward rather than instigating the IDPs to embark on protests.
Information Officer at the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Mr Tema Ager, denied starving the IDPs, saying food was being distributed to them currently.
Ager also refuted claims that pregnant women were sleeping on bare floors, saying there were no cases of pregnant women losing their babies.
“The the protest was politically motivated. The IDPs are not being starved, the government is providing food for them.”
He explained that, “Those IDPs in Yelwata usually abandon their camp and move to the camp in the international market in Makurdi because it’s a recent camp and people have been trooping in there to provide them with food.
“Even when we take food to them in Yelwata, they still come back to the international market to collect another one.
“The major issue that triggered this protest is politics. Simply because the first lady visited yesterday and announced that she donated N1 billion. You know the process of getting this money, sometimes they just announce it. It’s when they go back that they process it.
“What she announced yesterday cannot happen today, more so, the money is for resettlements not for food. Some of them are protesting that they were given money before and we have not shared it with them. That money is not meant to be shared to them.
