By Michael Dibie
As a result of the activities of banditry and other related insecurity issues, some communities in Kaduna, North Central Nigeria have been displaced for the past two years without any meaningful plan or hope of resettlement.
Significant interventions from relevant authorities are slow and in some other places, there are just not in place leading to some IDPs loitering and begging for survival as their means of livelihood has been take away from them.
A good example of this case is an IDP camp at Maraba Rido, Kaduna which host about 5000 people from various communities that have experienced kidnapping and killing of their loved ones. Each resident of Maraba Rido camp either has a relation kidnapped and unable to pay the required Ransome or has a loved one killed as a result of an attack on their community leading to displacement.
Sandra is a 14-year-old girl from Agomba Ogundu, Chikun, Kaduna, her mother was kidnapped and as a result she has been staying at the IDP camp at Maraba Rido, Kaduna for three years now with her father.

The young girl had to stop school because the father can’t afford to send her back to school.
She said they left their home three years ago and unable to go back because of the threat from the bandits, her father had lost his means of livelihood and unable to take care of the family any more. Sandra is unable to continue with school like some of her mates because the father can’t afford the fee.
However, she was able to resume school again this term after a long time because someone offered to help to pay her school fees.
“I left my home because the kidnappers pursued us and we came here, It’s only this term that I resumed school because a man came to help. there is no money, the money that we were supposed to use for school fees is what we are using to pay to Kidnappers as tax” she said.
It would be recalled that on March 7, some students were abducted by armed bandits on motorcycles who stormed the LEA Primary and Secondary School in Kuriga village, in Kaduna’s Chikun district, state police said.
At least 137 school children were kidnapped by these armed gunmen earlier last month and later released after 17 days in captivity.Their release came a day after another group of 17 pupils abducted on 9 March from a school in Sokoto State were released.

According to the State emergency Agency, about 290 ,000 residents across 551 communities have been displaced by bandits across 12 LGAs in Kaduna, North Central Nigeria. Many of these people have been forced to relocate from their homes mostly children due to kidnapping.
Executive secretary of the Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency (KADSEMA), announced the figures during the flag-off of the distribution of palliatives.
The Kaduna State Government, in collaboration with the military security outfit, Operation Save Heaven (OPSH), late last year said it has concluded arrangements to resettle Southern Kaduna communities displaced by bandits to their ancestral homes.
Governor Uba Sani said the state government was ready to provide all logistics necessary to resettle the displaced communities to their ancestral homes.
Adding that the government would assist the displaced victims to rebuild their destroyed homes where the need arises.
However, Adamu Suleiman, coordinator, Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camp, Maraba Rido, Kaduna said the camp currently has more than 4000 displaced people residing at Maraba Rido camp from 25 villages. According to him, that the people are suffering because they lack food, as the only source of livelihood they have is farming and that has been taken away from them.
“They have not gotten any tangible help from the government, though some individuals and NGOs have been supporting but not enough.”
He reiterated that many of the IDPs young people cannot go to school because their parents have no money. He calls on the government and other Individuals to help some of these IDPs especially the children so they can afford to continue with school.
‘Though public schools are free but they need to buy books for these children but if the parents don’t have what to eat how will they get money to buy books for the children. So many children are crying, because their parents are not empowered and have nothing to take care of their family” Adamu added.

A Security Expert, Dr Jonathan Onoja Isaac, urges government to take advantage of the numerous skills of the Nigeria youths, in order to avoid children between 15-18 getting involved in internet fraud.
“So when we talk on insecurity like I have highlighted, we talk illiteracy, youth unemployment and poverty and again corruption both systematic and administrative corruption both in the political and security sector, there is a need for us to rejic the political architecture to bring in people with credibility”
Another victim, Ladi Joshua, said the hardship faced by the community as a result of insecurity is intolerable. “Since we came to this area, we have no houses. They gave us a primary school to stay and after a while they asked us to leave the primary school and get houses (rent) to stay.
Some of the victims revealed that the government was yet to fulfill its promises to the community, explaining, “The food we get here and every other things are from private bodies who came to show solidarity.
Kidnappings by criminal gangs and terror groups demanding ransom payments have become an almost daily occurrence in Nigeria, especially in the north, with authorities seemingly powerless to stop them.