The number of Nigerians displaced by violence in the insurgency-ravaged North East has reached five million, speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara has said.
Dogara who spoke when he received the head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Ms. Angel Dekonge Antangara in his office, disputed official figures of IDPs put at 2.1 million.
He said the actual number of people affected by Boko Haram insurgency may be close to five million.
“As an indigene of the North East, it is safe to say the number of IDPs in Nigeria can be up to five million,” Dogara said in a statement issued by his spokesman, Turaki Hassan.
Dogara recalled that he has sponsored a motion which in part, requested President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently establish a North East Development Commission and convene an International Donor Conference or Summit to mobilise additional financial resources through international donor funding for the rehabilitation of the North East.
The speaker appealed for help for the North East from the UNHCR and other donors.
“Terrorism is global and if not dealt with, it will spill across borders such as the current refugee crisis facing Europe from Syria, Libya etc.” he said.
Dogara disclosed that the House Committee on Public Safety and National Intelligence when constituted will be mandated to handle issues relating to IDPs.
“If they are overwhelmed however; a substantive Committee for IDPs will be looked into. The House is ready to partner with all relevant bodies committed to ending the evil that produce refugees, IDPs and the events of statelessness,” he added.
On the issue of domesticating the resolutions of the refugee conventions, the speaker said the House will partner with the Senate to ensure that important treaties and convention are ratified through the relevant committees soon.
Speaking earlier, Ms. Angel Dekonge Antangara urged Nigeria to sustain its pioneer role in the security and resettlement of IDPs as well as parliamentary input to sensitise on the right of IDPs as human beings.
Antangara said that the existing draft from the IDPs convention should be domesticated and that a committee should be set up to take care of refugees as well as IDPs.
Nigeria Has 5million Out Of School Girls-UNESCO
A new report by the UNESCO’s EFA Global Monitoring Report (GMR) for International Day of the Girl Child, shows that there are five million out of school girls in Nigeria. The report made available to LEADERSHIP yesterday revealed that the gender parity index showed (girls:boys) primary:0.81 (1999), 0.92 (2015),GPI secondary: 0.92 (1999) 0.85 (2015). The report revealed that “In other words, the country is improving its ratio of girls to boys in primary school, but there are still only just over 92 girls for every 100 boys in class. In secondary education, the ratio is getting worse over time. There were 92 girls per 100 boys in secondary school, but are now only 85.”
It added that 45% of girls will complete lower secondary education, compared to 60% of boys. While the richest boys in the country are all in primary school, the same won’t be true for the poorest girls until 2074,the report added.
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