The pathetic situation of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in various camps in the North East due to the Boko Haram insurgency is pathetic. The PAGED Initiative, a local Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), founded and managed by young women from Nigeria who want to mainstream development through the media relates this while implementing the Uprooted Project in Borno State, Daily Trust reports.
‘Uprooted’ is a bottom-up research and film-making project that sheds light on changing gender norms and cultural practices in the conflict-ridden Borno State. The project, which is funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Nigeria, aims at capturing the untold stories of women and girls who like their countless peers in the region have shown exceptional courage and resourcefulness in safeguarding their families and helping them survive in the midst of the Boko Haram crisis.
In the process, these women and girls found opportunities, including access to livelihood and decision-making power that would have been hard to acquire prior to the regional conflict.
Janet Samuel, a teacher and mother of two who ran from Gwoza to Maiduguri, recalled her life in Gwoza before her displacement. She said her community was not bad, and that when it was peaceful, people showed love to one another.
According to her, with the good weather in Gwoza, there was always abundance of fruits and vegetables.
“We had lots of irrigation farmland everywhere, so both during dry and wet seasons we enjoyed produce from the farmlands such as onions, tomatoes, cabbage, lettuce, garden egg, all sorts of fresh produce,” she said.
She further said apart from her teaching job, she was with her husband into farming; cultivating beans, groundnuts, cotton, guinea corn, benniseed and various types of vegetables.
She said the farm products were both for consumption and sale, and that while cotton was not edible; they ate the pods and sold the cotton.
“The money we used to make was enough for us. We were even able to help people and also take care of our needs. We also helped our relatives with school fees. We had a large house. The house here (in Maiduguri) is very small and there is no space for the children to play.
“We did not have to buy foodstuff, but here, even if it is cold water you want you will have to buy. Anything you want to cook you must buy, and everything is expensive.
“We are always thinking of those our loved ones who have been separated from us by Boko Haram: some are dead while we don’t even know where others are, she lamented.
The PAGED Initiative also conducted a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) in three IDP communities in Maiduguri and the report shows that many of the IDPs, though happy about their safety in the state capital, cannot help but lament the problems associated with living as displaced persons.
Hajiya Gambo Bukar who currently lives in Maiduguri after migrating from Mafa in the heat of the conflict, said she lived in a three-bedroom apartment in Mafa but now lived in an uncomfortable one-bedroom with her children.
Hajja Ammaya Balu and Hajja Mairo Muhammad, both from Mafa, said they paid N2,000 each as house rent monthly and that they could no longer afford it.
The worst scenario, according to Mairo, is that they had big homes lying empty in their communities.
Out of 20 elderly women who spoke to PAGED Initiative in Jimtilo Community, 18 do not know what became of their houses because they ran away when the insurgents struck and have since not returned.
The two other women, Fatima Musa and Hafsat Yarima, said their houses were burnt in their presence.
The report shows that the women are facing serious livelihood challenges as 16 said they were farmers before leaving their homes and their communities.
They said they were still farming in Maiduguri and that the difference was that they had to pay rent to obtain farmlands in Maiduguri whereas they owned the farms back home.
Fussam Babagana said she paid N2, 000 to the District Head of Jimtilo to rent a farm and that she also gave him something in form of a gift after cultivating.
The women from Bama Local Government Area insisted that they wanted to return to their home communities because they were tired of living in uncomfortable houses in Maiduguri.
According to the Director of PAGED Initiative, Ummi Bukar, “We don’t simply want to see the media as a tool to be used in reporting the work of organisations and the civil society; we want to strengthen ties between the media, civil society and the people.”
She said the conflict in the North East was a terrible thing and that the government, the military and NGOs were working hard to ensure that the conflict was ended and relief provided to the unfortunate victims.
“We decided that it would be important to provide a platform for the victims to be heard directly. Hence Uprooted was born. It is a participatory research and film project that aims to bring out direct voices from the field. The Embassy of the Netherlands is well known for its interest in gender and human rights and it provided the funding that made our work possible.
“One of the most resounding issues that came up during our research was how the IDPs who lived in Maiduguri felt about their current living arrangement. While there are few cases of people who were happy with their new abodes, most of the IDP’s are not happy with their move to the city and are nostalgic of their lives back home,” Bukar said.
She gave example with a young man who lives in Fori, a host community for IDPs who now has easy access to viewing centres to watch his beloved Chelsea. She also said another young man now had a mobile phone and a city girlfriend who wasn’t shy to speak to him on phone.
With this scenario, she said it was wrongfully assumed that everybody wanted to live in the cities because her team discovered from the IDPs in Maiduguri that they were happier away from city life.
“This is why we at PAGED Initiative believe that it is important to give people a platform to speak for themselves,” she concluded.
