African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
NigeriaSociety
Home›African Arguments›Country›West›Nigeria›Nigeria’s conflict victims can’t all go home. They must be resettled.

Nigeria’s conflict victims can’t all go home. They must be resettled.

By Toyin Saraki
September 20, 2017
3597
0
Sala, 6, and her schoolmates study in Niger after being resettled from Nigeria. Credit: UNHCR / H. Caux.

Humanitarian assistance to internally-displaced persons is crucial, but this must be complemented with longer-term policies.

Sala, 6, and her schoolmates study in Niger after being resettled from Nigeria. Credit: UNHCR / H. Caux.

Sala, 6, and her schoolmates study in Niger after being resettled from Nigeria. Credit: UNHCR / H. Caux.

Gripped by multiple humanitarian crises, 2016 saw more people displaced globally than at any time since World War II. According to the UN, 66 million people fled their homes due to natural disasters, conflict or persecution.

Of this number, 40 million remained within the borders of their countries, becoming internally displaced persons (IDPs). These individuals typically settle in camps or host cities before attempting to return home. For many, however, this option is impossible, while for many of those who do return, going back brings with it huge dangers.

For policymakers, the focus should not be on returning IDPs to their old homes, but on helping them resettle in a new home.

Take Nigeria. Violent conflict in the Lake Chad region has driven an estimated 2 million people from their lands, with Nigeria’s north-east at the epicentre. Expelled by the brutal Islamist group Boko Haram, most of the conflict’s victims now live a precarious existence within Nigeria’s fragile borders. Shrouded by uncertainty, IDPs often spend years in limbo waiting to return home. In zones of protracted conflict, they may find themselves waiting a lifetime.

The direct threat of Boko Haram may have subsided recently, but the outlook of IDPs in the region remains bleak. In Nigeria’s north-eastern states, the militants have ruthlessly and strategically destroyed everything in their path. Homes, infrastructure and farms have been devastated, and in many cases, the group has left nothing in its wake but barren land. In Borno state, an estimated 75% of infrastructure has been decimated. Many IDPs are understandably hesitant to return to homes they do not recognise.

What’s more, violence persists, and most areas that are occupied, or were previously occupied, by Boko Haram, remain risky. This makes humanitarian assistance logistically challenging, and recovery perpetually slow. The conflict has led to the near collapse of basic government services. Schools, hospitals, and sanitation systems have all been badly hit, making returning home unappealing, if not impossible.

Unable to return home, resettlement becomes the only option.

Yet this approach is not without its own problems. Simmering regional tensions, unwelcoming host cities, and resource scarcity all make resettlement en masse immensely challenging. The international community and domestic governments must work together to overcome these challenges.

[Visiting Boko Haram territory]

Nowhere to call home

I have visited IDP camps in north-east Nigeria. I have seen with my own eyes the fear and despair of the innocent victims of the crisis. Famine and disease are often rife in IDP camps, although life there is better than the unimaginable tragedy from which people have fled.

Recent UN figures estimate that the IDP crisis in Nigeria will need more than a billion dollars to be resolved, yet to date less than half of this total has been funded. Nigeria urgently needs greater funding and aid to resettle people with nowhere to go and nowhere to call home. Returning IDPs to their desolate homelands will do little more than fuel the same vicious cycle of poverty and conflict that has rendered the region a boiling pot for insurgency.

In order to facilitate the swift and effective resettlement of IDPs, policymakers, governments and donors must focus on certain key objectives. Currently, the focus of policies affecting IDPs has been on camps and providing humanitarian assistance. While critical, this must also be matched with complementary longer-term policies.

Resettlement creates extreme burdens on host communities, especially in the low-resource countries that so commonly accommodate the largest share of IDPs. Host cities need aid and investment – in infrastructure, schools, and public health facilities – to allow for smooth resettlement. IDPs crucially need access to basic government facilities, and this requires investment and commitment.

One vital mechanism of ensuring that migrants and IDPs have access to healthcare in host cities is the provision of certifiable identities and birth registrations. Typically, host states can neither track nor monitor the diseases of IDPs without certifiable identities, limiting the scope of healthcare available. The provision of documentation ensures that each individual is catered for, and that no one is excluded from systems of care. Personal health records have the power to identify underlying illness, ensure vaccinations are administered and updated, and provide individuals with an official identity that will greatly facilitate resettlement in the long-term.

Paired with the necessary physical provisions, a more onerous task in effectively resettling IDPs is creating an attitudinal shift. All over the world, attitudes towards accommodating IDPs are becoming increasingly fraught, jeopardising the future of these people in desperate need. Only with a widespread attitudinal change will IDPs be able to integrate in their new communities and become contributing members of society.

Changing attitudes

This month at the United Nations General Assembly, policymakers will be focusing on this year’s theme of peace, justice and strong institutions. It is my hope that tackling these issues will pave the way for deeper discussion and action on resettling IDPs around the world.

The IDP crisis needs solutions, and attitudes towards acceptance must change. Now is the time to act and it is both our interest and our obligation to rebuild regions, realign attitudes, and resettle the world’s most vulnerable victims of conflict.

Previous Article

Could a former winner of the Ballon ...

Next Article

An open letter to Sauti Sol, as ...

Toyin Saraki

Toyin Saraki is the founder and president of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa.

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Debating IdeasDemocracy and ElectionsEritreaEthiopiaHorn of AfricaKenyaRegionalismUgandaWar and War Crimes

    Africa in the World – 2021 and Beyond

  • A group of Darfuris prepare to take part in a camel race. Credit: Amin Ismael. UNAMID.
    PoliticsSudan

    Amid silence, atrocities in Darfur have restarted

  • Politics

    “Save Darfur” Isn’t the Anti-Apartheid Movement

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • Oligarchs, Oil and Obi-dients: The battle for the soul of Nigeria
  • Of cobblers, colonialism, and choices
  • Blackness, Pan-African Consciousness and Women’s Political Organising through the Magazine AWA
  • “People want to be rich overnight”: Nigeria logging abounds despite ban
  • The unaccountability of Liberia’s polluting miners

Editor’s Picks

Editor's PicksEgyptFellowsSociety

Egypt’s patriarchy says women don’t ride bikes. These women disagree.

Despite facing harassment, more and more women and girls are defying sexist attitudes and riding bikes and motorbikes around Cairo. Heba Attia first started riding a bike when she was ...
  • Truck drivers have continued to pour soil to fill up wetland areas in Nsambya, Kampala, Uganda. Credit: Nangayi Guyson.

    “The rich are untouchable”: Uganda’s struggles to protect its wetlands

    By Nangayi Guyson
    September 1, 2022
  • The climate crisis has made weather patterns more extreme and unpredictable in northern Cameroon. Credit: Carsten ten Brink.

    The climate crisis tinderbox in northern Cameroon

    By Nalova Akua
    May 12, 2022
  • Tunisia's President Kais Saied meeting with then US Defense Secretary Mark Esper at Carthage Palace, Tunisia, in September 2020. Credit: DoD/Lisa Ferdinando.

    Is Tunisia’s democracy slipping away?

    By Raed Ben Maaouia
    June 16, 2022
  • african books, best of the 2010s

    Best of the 2010s: Novels by African writers

    By Samira Sawlani
    December 17, 2019

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu