There have been claims that the gates of the IDP camp in Makurdi, the capital of Benue State, were locked, but Aondowase Kunde, the state commissioner for humanitarian affairs and disaster management, has denied the accusation. The camp gate was temporarily sealed, he said, so that legitimate IDPs could be properly verified.
Advertisements
Young people from the host town make up the bulk of this group. They are unable to provide their IDP cards when you ask to see them. Their methods of infiltrating the camp and sowing discord have been noted.
Market vendors, including some of the women, sneak in, steal aid supplies intended for internally displaced people, and then leave.
“Yesterday, while everyone was focussing on nursing mothers and pregnant women, some people even borrowed children to pose as them and get help.”
There should be nowhere else for you to go now that you’re displaced, Kunde continued. They went outside, some say, to take a shower or go to sleep. If you go back to your comfortable place and just come to get food, how can you claim to be an internally displaced person?
I don’t even know the man personally,” Kunde said in response to the accusation that he personally witnessed the beating of Guinness World Record Cook-a-thon competitor Chef Victor Tartenger.
I had to step in when he showed up and got into a fight with the cops. I took him aside and advised him to relax. I personally escorted him into the camp yesterday after he had cooked for the IDPs.”
According to Kunde, things became worse when Tartenger supposedly instructed security personnel to “go and fight armed herders in Yelwata.”
The cops were enraged by the comment, he claims. He let his female coworker into the camp yesterday, when they were both in the kitchen.
Inside, she is. Since Facebook doesn’t cost anything, people tend to assume the worst. He assured them that checks are in place to verify the identity of any recipients of aid.
“There will be no room for opportunists to take advantage of the situation, but the governor is dedicated to helping the displaced.”