By Emman Ovuakporie & Levinus Nwabughiogu

ABUJA—The National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, declared yesterday, that many Nigerians may soon become stateless due to the activities of Boko Haram.

Executive Secretary of the commission, Professor Ben Angwe, who was speaking during a budget defence session before the House of Represen-tatives committee on human rights said: “There are some Nigerians that are stateless.

“With the emerging terrorists’ activities, many Nigerians are at the risk of being stateless.”

Professor Angwe said as citizens are displaced by the insurgency, they cross over to neighbouring countries, but that as they return to Nigeria, they do not have any form of identification even as they are not recognized in their countries of refuge as citizens.

On the level of human rights violation in the country, Angwe said 2014 was a bad year for the country as it recorded the highest number of human right violations.

He said: “In 2014, Nigeria witnessed the highest cases of human rights violation activities. Children were abducted, many were killed; many cannot go to school and economic activities came to a standstill.

“We also witnessed a situation where Nigeria was registered on the map of refugees and IDPs. But despite that, the country remains on record of human rights protection.”

He said, however, that despite insecurity challenges, the commission had about 300 monitors of human rights violations in Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Nasarawa, Plateau, Benue, Taraba and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

National commissioner of the refugees’ commission, Hadiza Sani Kangiwa, in his presentation, revealed that based on their records, there are about 968,219 IDPs in various camps in the country, while 60,000 Nigerians are seeking asylum in Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

Kangiwa expressed worry about reported cases of abuses at IDPs camps, saying “we do not have any business establishing camps for IDPs in the country.

“People should not be kept on a camp for more than a month. With that, people will have an idea of having their needs taken care of.