IT is a well-documented fact that the Nigerian state does not truly care for the most vulnerable among its citizens.

Every day, stories of young girls being abducted with the collusion of powerful emirs and religious clerics, forcibly converted to Islam and married off to total strangers without the consent of their parents are displayed in the media but ignored by law enforcement authorities and the government whose duty it
is to protect the constitutional rights of all citizens.

The lack of willingness on the part of government to care for the welfare of the most vulnerable has reared its ugly head in the case of the millions of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living in squatter-camps all over the North East, especially Borno State, the epicentre of Boko Haram terror, activities.

In spite of the presence of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Nigerian Police and other law enforcement agencies which are supposed to look after the welfare of the IDPs, it has often taken an outcry from international agencies before federal and state governments woke up to the scandalous atrocities being perpetrated in these camps by the very people sent to care for them.

It took the alarm raised by the International Red Cross and the Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors without Borders) before President Muhammadu Buhari got to learn that malnutrition was killing dozens of children daily in the camps, in spite of the billions of Naira raised for the IDPs by state, federal governments and donors

The newest scandal exposed by Human Rights Watch, an international rights group with headquarters in New York, brought to the attention of President Buhari, an epidemic of rapes of female IDPs, with the particular tale of a teenage girl forcibly impregnated by a policeman. Once again, the President tweeted that he has set up a committee to probe the issue. Meanwhile, little is known of the earlier probe of diversion of funds and food items meant for the IDPs which led to the reported malnutrition in the camps.

It is a big shame that a government that makes war on corruption a priority, appears soft on government officials and law enforcement agencies that prey on defenceless victims of Boko Haram terror, especially the women and children.

The fact that it takes international groups to blow the whistle before the Presidency orders probes is very unacceptable. It is giving this country a bad
name.

We must have strong internal mechanisms to nip these atrocities in the bud and come down heavily on those found culpable to prevent further occurrences. Government must henceforth take seriously its sworn duty of protecting the rights and interests of the weakest and most vulnerable Nigerians, of which the IDPs are obviously the hardest-hit.