..lauds Gov Alia on National IDP Policy signing

By Peter Duru, Makurdi

The Director General of Benue State  Bureau for International Cooporation and Development, BICD, Dr. Leo-Angelo Viashima has explained that Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs in the state have not been returned to their ancestral homes due to the absence of policy instrument to support the exercise.

He however expressed joy that with the National IDP Policy now ready for assent by Governor Hyacinth Alia a major huddle would be crossed in that regard.

The Director-General who spoke in Makurdi lauded Governor Alia for providing the needed policies and creating the enabling environment to attract investments to Benue and interventions in the humanitarian sector of the state.

According to him “Nobody will come and invest in a state if you do not have the enabling environment. And the enabling environment come in form of policies. We have series of policies that the Governor has signed into law that have made Benue a more friendly place.

“One of those policies is the Persons With Disabilities Act, the Governor has also signed the Social Protection Law, we have the Water Law, and others. But the biggest of them all that he is signing is the National IDP Policy.

“Without the National IDP Policy I can tell you how much we have lost because we did not have it in place in the state. There were interventions we would have lost but because the government worked hard to commence the process of having the National IDP Policy in place. I can tell you that with the signing of the Policy we would achieve so much.”

Dr. Viashima pointed out that some persons took to social media to question the inability of the Governor to fulfil his promise to return Benue IDPs to their ancestral homes.

He noted that “the returning of IDPs is a very systemic thing. So you cannot forcefully return IDPs. The conditions for the return of IDPs to there ancestral homes are tight. And it is those conditions that we are meeting now.

“In fact we cannot take any IDP home until we sign the National IDP Policy. There was no instrument for returning the IDPs to the ancestral homes until this National IDP Policy that is coming in place now. So alot of people will not know that it is a condition for you to have that consideration. And then some people do not know this.

“Again, the IDP cannot be forced back home. He has to willingly say I want to go back home otherwise the IDP can sue you for taking her back to her ancestral home.

“The IDP also now have the awareness. And in order not to put government in bad global light, the right thing to do is to follow the seven processes. There must be security, they must go back home freely, there must be source of livelihood in that place and others. And the biggest of the seven is that they have to go back home voluntarily and there must be security there.”

Continuing, he said: “We know that if this people return back to their ancestral homes and we keep them in subsistence farming, subsistence farmers cannot afford security. So the Governor is working on agencies like, Benue Investment Promotion Agency, BENIPA, and other government agencies like the Peace Commission to establish very strong agro industrial base in those areas.

“The plan is that as the people go back there will be heavy investments that would require the deployment of heavy security that would ensure security presence in those areas so that the people will no longer be scared.”