The National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, on Thursday, revealed that it has registered only 84,803 (2 per cent) of the existing 3.2 million internally displaced persons scattered nationwide.

This was as it said Borno State tops the ranks of regions with the highest number of IDPs, numbering 1.6 million, while Ekiti state has 5,377.

The NCFRMI’s Federal Commissioner, Imaan Suleiman-Ibrahim, disclosed this at the 42nd Session of the State House Briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team.

She said: “According to the UNHCR matrix index, we have 3.2 million IDPs in Nigeria. And under the Progress V4 platform which is to capture and profile Refugees Data, which we run with the UNHCR, we have been able to register 84,803 refugees in Nigeria.

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“We have 1,570 asylum seekers and over 7000 urban refugees. We’ve been able to voluntarily return about 17,334 Nigerians back home. And during the recent evacuation, we’ve been able to record 1,625 evacuees from the Ukraine Russian war.”

Giving a breakdown of the number of IDPs, she said almost every state in the country is home to IDPs with Borno housing the highest number 1,630,284 and Ekiti with the least of 5,377.

The rest include Zamfara (678,000), Benue (300,000), Adamawa (208,334), Yobe (156,437), Niger (150,380), Katsina (130,113), Cross River (101,404), Ebonyi (93,404), Plateau (91,524), and Taraba (82,661).

Others are Bauchi (65,595), Nasarawa (46,769), Imo (42,335), FCT (31,029), Kwara (25,024), Kogi (20,477), Kano (17,981), Bayelsa (12,292), Akwa Ibom (10,062), Edo (11,716), Oyo (8,912), Rivers (8,119), Ondo (7,012), Delta (6,172) and Ogun (5,623).

She explained that the pilot phase for the construction of five resettlement cities has begun in Borno, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara and Nasarawa, while that of Edo State is yet to begin.

“We have started a piloting phase of our project resettlement in 2020. The project resettlement city will entail building small cities because Persons of Concern have three options of doable solutions.

“They can either locally integrate, resettle or they can go back to their homes. But sometimes, they are unable to go back home and that is why there is a need for building new communities or strengthening the capacity of their host communities.

“We are in the third phase of our resettlement city project but the pilot phase is in Borno State, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Nasarawa and Edo State. Most of them are now at between 70-90 per cent completion but that of Edo State is about to take off,” she said.

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Suleiman-Ibrahim, who is a former Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons noted that the Commission plans to combat hunger through empowerment schemes targeted at displaced persons as they learn new, tradable skills for their livelihood.

She said: “When displacements happen within Nigeria, we are not the first responders. So, we are expected to come in after they are stable to provide them with doable solutions so that they can go back to normalcy.

“So, the recent adoption of the National IDP Policy in 2021 by the Federal Executive Council is epic because that gives us the legal framework and clearly highlights everybody’s role including the IDPs and the host communities. We have been able to continue to strengthen the psycho-social support system for the Commission because people are displaced, they go through all kinds of trauma. So, psycho-social support is key.

“We have begun the piloting phase for the transitional learning centers in some locations, Edo, Zamfara, Imo, Bauchi, Federal Capital Territory and Katsina. We’ve been able to give persons of concern access to COVID-19 vaccines and also conduct medical outreaches in collaboration with the National Primary Health care Development Agency.

“We have also introduced the project Zero-Hunger, which was conceived to address the growing challenge of food insecurity because when you are hungry, you become vulnerable and easily accessible to criminal minds. We also ensure that we give them targeted empowerment and capacity-building training to make them more self-sufficient and give them a new lease of life.”

The Commissioner said, in collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency, NCFRMI has trained 10,000 PoCs in several ICT-related skills.

This, she said, was in line with its vision to achieve 90 percent of literacy for Nigerians.

She also listed three major challenges facing the Commission; insecurity, rising number of refugees and funding.

“The major challenge is security. In managing humanitarian crises there are areas that we are supposed to reach and we are unable to do so and that is a major problem because even when they are undergoing the crisis, sometimes the places are not secured but they still require support.

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“The second challenge is the rising numbers. You will agree with me that we have had an unprecedented humanitarian crisis globally. These things just keep happening and we have to manage the issue regardless. So, I think the rising numbers is also a challenge and we have to find a way of shrinking the numbers as quickly as possible.

“Then thirdly, is funding. There is hardly any funds for anything and they are required to be able to intervene quickly for these people,” Suleiman-Ibrahim explained.