Presidency, Shettima meet on Borno IDPs malnutrition

From Juliana Taiwo- Obalonye, Abuja

BORNO Governor, Kashim Shettima was at the Presidential Villa in what was believed to be in connection with re­ported cases of malnour­ished children and deaths of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in govern­ment camps in the state.

Doctors Without Bor­ders, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an in­ternational humanitarian aid organisation had, last week, released a state­ment alongside photo­graphs stating that about 24,000 IDPs were in dire health situation with, at least, 30 people, mostly children, dying every day.

President Muham­madu Buhari was said to be angry with the report and wondered why, after billions of naira from gov­ernment, as well as donor agencies and philanthro­pists, the situation was that dire.

Shettima, who was ac­companied by officials of the state, emerged from the office of the Chief of Staff after the meeting.

He, however, declined to take questions from State House Correspon­dents who approached him for comments on the allegations and why he was at the Presidential Vil­la. He simply said: “This was a private visit.”

Shettima had alleged that some non-govern­mental organisations (NGOs) were taking huge advantage of the pains of IDPs in the state and de­frauding foreign philan­thropists under the guise of trying to help victims of the Boko Haram insur­gency.

The governor paid a visit to Bama camp upon receiving reports that hundreds of malnourished persons recently rescued from Boko Haram captiv­ity, were dying in a camp in Bama, 75 kilomtres from Maiduguri, the state capital.

He ordered the reloca­tion of 61 children with acute condition of mal­nutrition to the intensive care unit of the Umaru Shehu Ultramodern Hos­pital, in Maiduguri.

Another set of over 400 persons with lesser cases of malnourishment were also moved out of the camp to a special care unit for proper feeding and medication.