…as PCVSF expends N10bn on victims’ resettlement
Four policemen indicted for demanding sex before allowing internally displaced persons (IDPs) to have access to food in their camps have been dismissed and currently being tried for the offence.
Disclosing this in Lagos, the Vice Chairman, Presidential Committee on Victims Support Fund (PCVSF), Tijjani Musa Tumsah, who led a team to the newspaper house, said stability was gradually returning to the various camps just as most of the displaced persons have been resettled in their communities.
Although he could not disclose the names of the culprits, he, however, described the dismissal and trial of the policemen as a mark of seriousness on the part of Federal Government to put an end to any form of victimization within any of the camps.
Tumsah, who said that the PCVSF had spent about N10 billion on various projects to get the displaced persons resettled, revealed that the number of originally displaced persons put at 2.4 million had reduced to 1.7 million, adding that the gradual return of peace and stability had made it possible to close the IDPs’ camp in Yobe state.
He also said that apart from the 18 registered camps in Maiduguri, some churches and non-governmental organisations have also been discovering other camp, some displaced persons ran to during the crisis.
The support fund set up in 2014 at the peak of Boko Haram insurgency as a non-military response to the terrorist activities, is made up of individuals drawn from the private sector, humanitarian and development agencies, security agencies, government agencies as we ll as civil society and religious organisations.
Calling on the media to assisting in projecting its activities, Tumsah said out of 1,200 schools destroyed by Boko Haram across the North East, PCVSF had intervened by rebuilding and fully furnishing 100, besides intervening in other form of rehabilitations in Edo and Benue states in the past.
Speaking further on the objectives of the support fund, which is chaired by Gen. T.Y. Danjuma, Tumsah, he said it was established to resettle victims of insurgency as well as ameliorate their welfare.
“We have recovered infrastructure destroyed by insurgents and have resettled those, who have gone back to their communities. We have committed funds raised for this cause on resettlement, especially education.
“The moment we are done with rebuilding the schools, we just don’t stop there. We go ahead to rehabilitate the teachers and also provide kits for the students to make going back to school easier for them,” he said.
