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VICTIM SUPPORT FUND: Is The Funds Meant For Burial Of Victims Of Insurgency Or IDPs & Others?


By IG Wala 
It was in July 2014 that the Administration of former President GEJ set up a Victim Support Fund Committee with Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd) as the Chairman of the Committee. The mandate of the committee was to raise N30 billion to help the victims of Boko Haram in the North East.
In a quest to achieving the mandate, the committee organized a fundraising, which the sum of N58.79 billion was raised from the organized private sector while the federal government and state governments pledged N20 billion combined to the victim support fund.

"In December, 2014, Dr. Sunday Ochoche was appointed as Executive Director of the committee. However, following this appointment, very little has been heard from the committee except that about N250million had been expended on administrative costs towards the 'setting up'of the Victim Support Fund..." Vanguard Newspaper

Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja directed the Head of Service of the Federation, Mr. Danladi Kifasi, to facilitate the immediate release of the N5 billion pledged by the Federal Government to the Victims Support Fund (VSF), since July last year. This directive came at the moment that Gen. Danjuma went to brief PMB on the status of the funds.

"Danjuma had earlier told the President that out of the N55.92 billion pledged at a fund-raising dinner for the Fund in August last year, N33.54 billion was still outstanding, including N5 billion from the Federal Government. According to him, the VSF currently has N23.33 billion in four bank accounts, revealing that the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan gave the Committee approval to incorporate the fund into a Trust Fund, to "insulate it from political interference''. - Vanguard Newspaper

In our recent tour of the entire IDP camps in the North Eastern States (excluding Taraba State), one could vividly see that not even one Naira from the victim support fund was put to use. Yet, the Committee had expended N250 Million for setting up Administration that over a year without kicking off any support activities.

The most disturbing aspect of all situation is the living condition of the IDPs in all the camps. In the first place, IDPs camps are now divided into two categories, formal and non-formal. Camps that are under the control of Government agencies like NEMA & SEMA are the formal camps, those under the communities or NGOs or faith based organizations are said to be non-formal. Therefore, the Non-formal IDP camps are not the responsibility of the Government. It is on this basis that, one statistics are revealing that only 10% of the IDPs are under the care of Government, for the rest, are at the mercy of charity givers.

On this note, I wish to relate that, the living condition of the IDPs in most of the camps are worst than the Prisons, very few can be said to be appreciated. The camps are overcrowded. For example, in Maiduguri, a single camp consist of over 18,000 people with over 2,000 children that lost both parents. Most camps are unkept, no enough shelter, poor sanitary and water system, absence of health service or hospital, exposed to sexual abuses for food and items. Most of all, security threat is higher, especially in the non formal camps.

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