BY ONYEKA AJUMOBI ONOCHIE
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has resolved to scale up the food ration given monthly to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Fufore Camp of Adamawa State to include about 4.5kg of assorted condiments in subsequent distribution from March, 2020.
The agency said this was in view of its concern for the refusal of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Fufore Camp to accept their monthly ration of 50kg assorted food items per household over complaints of insufficiency.
Revealing this to the press, Manzo Ezekiel, of the agency’s Press Unit in Abuja, said his agency was surprised at the camp’s new attitude, especially when the 50kg monthly ration per household has been an approved quantity by the Federal Government since June 2017 under the Emergency Food Intervention in Northeast (EFINE) programme being implemented by the agency.
“In addition to the supplies by NEMA under the programme, there was an understanding that the region’s state governments were to provide condiments as their own contribution to the IDPs,” he said, stressing that “the Federal Government has been providing the supports to the IDPs in the three camps in the state ever since the commencement of the programme.
“We are surprised, however, that in the immediate past three months of December, January and February, the IDPs living in Fufore camp had been rejecting the arrangement of the food distribution while others living in St. Theresa and Malkohi have been accepting this good gesture,” he further stressed, noting that “there is no basis for them to have rejected the arrangement as it has been the quantity (50kg) per household being given across the Northeast.”
Ezekiel, however, noted that the agency on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria has resolved to scale up the ration to include about 4.5kg of assorted condiments in subsequent distribution from March, 2020, on humanitarian grounds.
“While we acknowledge the concerns of the people for late distribution, sometimes, due to unforeseen logistical challenges, we would want to reiterate that these are often inevitable in a complex task of this nature that covers all parts of the country,” he emphasized, appealing to the IDPs in the Northeast and entire country “to cooperate with the agency in its continuous efforts to serve the citizens in distress.”