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By Deborah Coker, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
The recent call to bar of David Ayuba, Peter Isaac, Rifkatu Ali, Saminu Wakili, and Nathan Ibrahim, all from Borno who found refuge in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Edo more than a decade ago, bespeaks resilience and determination.
Their smiles alongside Pastor Solomon Folorunsho, Coordinator, Home for the Needy IDP Camp, Edo, send messages of victory.
The quintet’s journey started from fleeing Boko Haram insurgency that claimed the lives of their families and destroyed their homes.
Their flight from insurgents made them refugees or IDPs in a faraway Edo; but against all odds, they were unstoppable in their educational pursuit and what they wanted to become in life.
“I am the happiest person today to be frank; because of where they are coming from, and what we all went through to be what they are today,’’Folorunsho said.
The Boko Haram insurgency started in Borno in 2002 and spread like wildfire across the North-East.
Between 2010 and 2015 the Boko Haram launched several attacks on police stations, schools, and churches in Borno.
It is reported that more than 2 million displaced persons are in IDPs in Maiduguri camps with widespread food insecurity, and thousands of others scattered all over IDP camp across the country.
Available data indicates that more than 1,400 schools have also been reported destroyed, agriculture and trade disrupted, exacerbating poverty.
According to the IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) in Nigeria, in its round 49 of its tracking matrix, there are more than 2 million IDPs in the six states of Nigeria’s North-East.
Wakili recounted his experience.
He said that prior to the sack of his community, Gwoza, in 2014 by insurgents, he said he was using bicycle to bring foodstuffs to villages already sacked.
Wakili said he dropped out of school and fled to Cameroon.
“We were running helter-skelter to survive until I got to the IDP managed by the Home for the Needy Foundation, Uhorgua in Edo camp in 2015.
“At the camp, I met several other survivors who had also fled from Borno due to the same reason; we were all given intensive care and monitoring to help us out of our trauma, and then they put back to school at the camp.
“I was in Senior Secondary School 1 then, but today, I give God the glory for using Folorunsho and other workers in the camp to help achieve our desire in life.
“We had challenges while in university; difficulties in paying school fees due to paucity of funds, feeding and a whole lot, but we persevered, because we were well guided, counseled and advised and prayed for by the management of the camp.
“Folorunsho sacrificed a lot and made sure we never derailed or lost focus of what we wanted to be; I am grateful to him,” he said.
Wakili advised other IDPs who were still in school to remain focused on their studies, so that very soon they would join in bringing pride to the camp.
The stories of Ayuba, Ali, Isaac and Ibrahim are not different from that of Wakili, except that Ibrahim got to the camp in 2013.
They all fled their communities in Borno, specifically Gwoza to find succour and refuge at the IDP camp in Uhorgua, Edo.
They did not only find the succour and refuge they needed but family, education, and today, what they desired to be in life, lawyers.
According to them, they endured hunger, harassment from not paying school fees on time and being pushed out of class and at the initial stage as well as stigmatisation from course mates on finding out they were IDPs.
“But we were resolute and determined not to disappoint ourselves and the management of the camp, especially, the coordinator; so we forged on, and today we are not just lawyers, but we graduated with very good results and grades,’’ they said.
Meanwhile a very elated Folorunsho said that the newly called to bar IDPs endured hunger and all kinds of things.
“We all stood together and said this is possible and today it is possible; so. I did not know how to express my joy but I am so happy and grateful to God and thank him for their lives.
“In the next few weeks and months, we are going to have more in different fields graduating from universities.
“So, I will encourage them to support whenever they can; whoever is hearing, support that child, that vulnerable child that you see in the street begging is a potential doctor, lawyer.
“If you and I can join hands to take that child and say let us take care of this child like the way we do to our children, we would have saved this world from a lot of vices.”
Folorunsho explained that the Home for the Needy had been in existence since 1992.
He said the home decided to caring for orphans and vulnerable children from broken homes, street and out of school children.
“The reason why many people now call it IDP camp is because from 2012 to 2014 up until now, terrorism, banditry increased in Nigeria and displaced lots of persons who flood to our centre and became the highest population of those who are living with us.
“So, because they are displaced and everybody is talking about displaced persons, people started calling it IDP camp; otherwise, yes, homeless persons are part of those we registered to care for as the needy.
“So, that name now stuck to us that we are an IDP camp; of course, we are taking care of people who are displaced, but it is not only displaced persons that are here.
“There is hardly any tribe in Nigeria that you do not find there; but those from the North are more because there are more vulnerabilities from where they are coming from.”
He also said there were more than 4,000 IDPs in the camp aside those were provided accommodation in the different villages.
The coordinator said that some years back the centre/camp used to benefit from government interventions, but for eight years, it had stopped.
“In the last eight years plus, we have not benefited any federal or state government interventions, and that is why things became tougher for us.
“Because some persons not only decide not to support us, but they made sure that wherever we were getting support, they blocked it, thinking that when they do that, they would stifle us and then we will give up and throw the children out.
“But we are determined and all the children are determined.
“In the midst of all this, there are persons who have kept faith with us; persons like Bishop David Oyedepo; even some judges in the court, churches, Muslim brethren who see that what we are doing is right and they quietly support us.
“There are as also different universities coming to volunteer, to teach, corps members among few others.
“So, what we do now is taking the bull by the horn by sometimes planting some vegetables by ourselves, but it is never enough because the children are quite young.
“So, this is how we have been doing it and we are encouraged by this kind of result that we see.’’
The coordinator also said that so far, more than 85 IDPs from the camp had graduated.
According to him, some are practicing lawyers and magistrates, and several others in different fields.
“Few months ago, five of our IDPs graduated as medical doctors, and some others as pharmacists; between this year and next year, we are going to have more than 40 accountants,” he said.
Stakeholders say the episode of Wakili and co is soul-stirring; hence, the need for both government and private stakeholders to bolster support for Home for the Needy IDP Camp, Edo. (NANFeatures)
