•we cannot solve the problem alone — NSA
The Federal Government is seeking urgent international support to address human and climate-induced displacement and poverty in the country.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu, convened a high-level meeting on building partnerships for durable solutions at the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday, where she made the push for more support.
Speaking at the event, she disclosed the establishment of a Presidential Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Fund with the federal government providing 30 percent counterpart funding.
She said: “Lots of commitment is needed at all level to see that Nigeria is able to overcome its challenges especially as it has to do with persons who are affected by humanitarian crisis, where we have about 16 million registered persons that are affected by humanitarian crisis.
“And suffice to say that this number might actually be doubled because there are persons who are affected but they are not registered and they live within communities and have not come forward for formal registration.
“So, we might be dealing with close to 35 million persons that are directly or indirectly affected by humanitarian crisis.
“I would want to state a couple of things. The first point is that Nigeria needs as a country to have support from the UN at all levels to see that we can meet the needs of our citizens.
“We also need the support of all the UN agencies that are in the room and those who are operating in Nigeria, even those who are not operating in Nigeria.
“It’s time for you to put boots on the ground and support Nigeria all the way and we need to do this in a more coordinated and strategic manner.
“Secondly, we don’t want to deal with emergencies or humanitarian crises as well, emergencies that will come and go within six months or a maximum of one year. We need to start facing the reality. Persons have been displaced internally, refugees are in our country, over 89,000 refugees and several other persons of concern are vulnerable.
“The question is, once we have people who are exposed to humanitarian crisis, we’re tempted to believe that it will soon be over and so they will be going back to their homes and back to where they came from. But that’s not the reality on the ground.
“We have children that are in Maiduguri today, which is Borno State that have been there for the last eight years. We have children that were born into that situation, and they have continued to live in tarpaulins or makeshift buildings, the kind not even be able to house any of us in this room for even six hours.
“We have families that do not have access to quality health care services. We have families that do not have access to water and sanitation. We have people who do not even have the status of having their daily meals even once a day in Nigeria, and these are real situations on the ground.
“We’ll try to represent some of this in our pitch deck, which we have here today. We will be sharing this so that you can see the situation on the ground in Nigeria and how best we can intervene or what is most important that what we should take out of this meeting is that we need that urgent support as a country.”
Speaking at the event, the Governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani spoke of his administration’s effort to alleviate the suffering of the under-served and the vulnerable in the state, emphasizing the contributions of Qatar and Kuwait so far.
According to him, the Qatar government is spending $32 million to provide shelter, health care and education for about 500,000 displaced persons in the state.
Similarly, he said the government of Kuwait has also provided a loan of $28 million at a very low-interest rate to meet the needs of the vulnerable persons.
He praised the efforts of international donors and urged them never to relent in their contributions until the problems at hand abate.
In his remark, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, noted that insecurity is the major cause of the humanitarian crisis and has pushed many Nigerians further into poverty.
While noting, that it had taken out children from schools and denied people their basic lifestyles, he said the affected areas in Nigeria are the only places people are dying of hunger.
Ribadu said those responsible for the insecurity are not fair to the country but stressed that it is a challenge the government must face.
The NSA called on the international community already providing humanitarian assistance to Nigeria to do more as he noted that bearing the brunt, the country cannot resolve the problem alone.
“We don’t have the capacity to do it alone. We thank those who are helping us and want them to do more,” he said.
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