House of Representatives has directed the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), to develop a comprehensive database of all refugees, migrants and displaced Nigerians.
Chairman House committee on IDPs and Humanitarian Matters, Alhaji Muhammad Umar Jega, gave the directive at the budget defence session with officials of the Refugees commission.
Alhaji Muhammad Umar Jega, explained that the making available a comprehensive data of the IDP’s would enable the legislature appropriate adequately fund for management and protection of the vulnerable.
The committee Chairman who was concerned that currently Nigeria has over 3 million IDP’s stressed that a lot of Programmes must be introduced to reintegrate them before returning them back to their homes.
Responding, the commissioner in charge of Refugees commission, Senator Bashir Muhammad, told the committee that the sum of N5.7bn was appropriated for the agency for capital and recurrent expenditures in 2020, an increase of 36.5% from 2019.
Senator Bashir Muhammad, maintained that the Commission has the capacity and full willingness to execute projects appropriated in 2020, but due to the delay caused by the Covid 19 Pandemic makes it’s performance low.
The Commissioner also appealed for the review of the commission’s capital allocation from what currently obtains to allow it accommodate many IDP’s and refugees affected by different incident.
SALIHU TSIBIRI