News Editor
From Dooshima Terkura, Makurdi
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from different camps in Benue state have staged a protest accusing the state government of diverting the N1 billion donated by the First Lady during her condolence visit to the state last Tuesday.
The IDPs numbering thousands, on Wednesday, barricaded of the Lafia Makurdi Federal Highway, at Yelwata in Guma Local Government Area (LGA) of the state demanding that the money be shared to them immediately.
The IDPs who chanting songs and were demanding to be decamped as they want to go back to their ancestral homes, also alleged that such monies have been given to them in the past but the government has refused to give them the monies.
They also expressed frustrations over hardships, and starvation at the camps also lamented that herdsmen have continued to kill their people.
The protesters who cried out that “We want to go back home”, “we are hungry, “our women are losing their babies and pregnancies, “Our people are being killed” said the protest was meant to draw attention to the severe hunger and inhumane treatment they have suffered at the camp.
One of the IDPs, Rebecca Awuse told newsmen that, “we have problems. Our problems are that we are hungry, we don’t have food to eat, no where to sleep.
“Our children are crying over hunger and many women who are pregnant have all lost their pregnancies because of hunger and no access medical treatments.
“Also, many of these pregnant women have no where to sleep, they are sleeping on bare floor and no hospital for them to attend antenatal. There are no drugs, no professionals at the camp to consult. These are some of our problems.”
Speaking to newsmen on the protest, the Technical Adviser (TA) to Governor Hyacinth Alia on Media, Strategic Communication and Publicity, Solomon Iorpev said that the protest was politically motivated.
.”If not so, the wife of President Tinubu, Senator Oluremi just gave the cheque on Tuesday which is yet to be cleared and cashed for the purpose it was meant. Today, IDPs have blocked the Makurdi – Lafia- Abuja highway demanding for the money”.
He said that Governor Alia is keen in ensuring the welfare of the vulnerable groups in the state and will be the last person to think of diverting money meant for the less privilege.
Iorpev urged politicians to rather close ranks to move the state forward rather than instigating IDPs to embark on protests.
Also speaking, the Information Officer at the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) Mr Tema Ager denied starving the IDPs in the state say food was being distributed to them currently.
Ager also refuted claims that pregnant women are sleeping on bare floors saying there were no cases of pregnant women losing their babies.
He stated that “The the protest was politically motivated. The IDPs are not being starved, government is providing food for them.”
He explained that “Those IDPs in Yelwata usually abandon their camp and move to the camp in international market in Makurdi because it’s a recent camp and people have been trooping in there to provide them with food.
He said “Even when we take food to them there in Yelwata, they still come back to international market to collect another one.
“The major issue that triggered this protest is politics. Simply because the first lady visited yesterday and announced that she donated N1 billion. You know the process of getting this money, sometimes they just announce it. It’s when they go back that they process it.
“What she announced yesterday cannot happened today and more so the money is for resettlements not for food. Some of them are protesting that they were given money before and we have not shared it to them. That money is not meant to be shared to them.
