Internally
displaced persons have been languishing from hunger and dying in droves
while Nigerians out there have been made to believe all along that the
victims were being taken good care of. At least, that was what the
governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima had made us believe until
Nigerians came to know the truth.
As recently as April 2016, Governor Shettima told the world in a keynote address he presented at the first annual dialogue on Rebuilding Peace in Borno State
organized by AOA Global, a humanitarian advocacy group, that internally
displaced persons, IDPs, consume a whopping 1,800 bags of 50
kilogrammes of rice daily. That number represents three trailer loads of
rice. Daily?
Before this time, the state’s former
deputy governor, late Zanna Mustapha, had some time in December 2014,
told the world that the Borno State government was spending a humongous
N600 million monthly in feeding IDPs in only 20 out of the 27 local
government areas in the state.
However, despite this supposed huge
expenses by the Borno State government, very disturbing reports came out
from the camps recently of people especially children dying of
malnutrition in these camps. One of the reports said that at least 30
children were dying from malnutrition, on average, daily while there
were about 1,233 graves of citizens who died of acute malnourishment out
of which 480 were children’s discovered by Medecins Sans Frontiers.
In a bid to cover up their negligence
and corruption, some government officials had claimed that the children
were already malnourished in Boko Haram camps where they were held
captive before being rescued. But that narrative has refused to take
hold, and will never take hold. Many have dismissed such claims as they
have the the purported “rescued of Chibok girls”. It speaks of the
highest level of incompetence for a state that hosts the world’s
deadliest terror group, Boko Haram for the past 7 years to be unable to
provide basic help for victims of the group? Were Shettima and his
partners not aware that unlike the purported stage-managed rescued
Chibok girls, the reality of such rescue is that the victims would need
intensive care?
Why would Nigerians who survived the
onslaught of the dreaded sect for years showing resilience while in
captivity be left to die after regaining freedom? Why would those who
were forced to live in Sambisa die in Bama? Why would children live
under Shekau but die under Shettima? Even if their conditions were so
desperately hopeless, does it mean that the government of Shettima did
not make adequate provisions medically and otherwise for such situations
despite the hundreds of millions bandied about as the sums expended on
taking care of the IDPs?
Those innocent Nigerians had no reason
whatsoever to die once rescued from Boko Haram! Their rescue should have
been a joyous journey back to life and not a sad, pathetic and shameful
one to death! And just like the outgoing USA Ambassador to America,
James Entwistle asked recently, “Nigerians are dying of starvation in
Nigeria. How can that be?”
Indeed, how can that be?
If the Doctors Without Borders could
have an inpatient therapeutic centre in Maiduguri where they immediately
referred 16 of these malnourished and dying children to, nurture them
back to life with utmost and intensive care, the Borno State governor
and members of his team should be held responsible for the needless and
avoidable deaths of citizens directly in their care!
They should be made to account for all
the donations both in cash and in kind that have come the way of the
IDPs through the state government from foreign countries, local and
international donor organizations, corporate entities, NGOs, religious
organizations, individuals etc.
Another fact we must not gloss over is
the reality that some of these children actually became malnourished
while in the camps as we have heard of how officials shortchange the
IDPs in the distribution of food and medicines. Obviously, somebody
somewhere is feeding fat at the expense of these vulnerable children who
deserve our all in order to be alive. That is the height of
heartlessness.
Maybe Kashim Shettima is still waiting
for former president Jonathan to call him before he wakes up to his
responsibilities just like he lamented in the wake of the Chibok saga
that the former president did not call him until after 19 days following
the incident. He declared this as one of his defence for his poor
handling of the Chiobk issue, and when he was reminded that he, as the
chief security officer of the state should have reached out to Jonathan,
he said he did not reach out to the former president because he assumed
that he would have been briefed! Briefed by whom? If a governor could
think and act this way then, how do we expect such a ruler to be able to
handle even more intricate matters of nurturing dying children back to
life?
It is such act of carelessness and
incompetence that Shettima has grown with to the extent that he cannot
take care of a small proportion of citizens put under his care. Or, is
he still waiting for Jonathan’s call. His excuses so far for this
inexplicable and unfortunate occurrence are at best lame in reason and
defective in intelligence.
This is the effect of politicising
serious matters just for mundane purposes. If Shettima and his team had
used the Chibok matter as a learning process rather than as a divisive
tool, if they had focused on the larger picture rather than on the
narrow prism of pulling Jonathan down, they would by now have
appreciated the enormity of the catastrophe staring them in the face,
and would have risen to the challenge rather than sacrifice those
innocent citizens including children in desperate need of the care of a
certain governor and his officials.
To put an end to this carnage of
disturbing proportions, I wish to appeal to former president Goodluck
Jonathan to place a call to Alhaji Kashim Shettima, the governor of
Borno State, perhaps that is all he needs to wake up to the enormous
responsibility that fate has placed on him, and save us the
embarrassment of war-like images from his domain.
Jude
Ndukwe is a political analyst who lives and works in Abuja, Nigeria. He
is a member of The Trent’s Elite Columnists. His column is published
every Friday. He tweets from @stjudendukwe.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
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