IDP Diaries: ‘People Pose As IDPs To Get Our Aid Materials’
When Goni queues to collect aid materials, he notices new people who pretend to be IDPs. With the help of corrupt camp officials and aid workers, already scarce materials make it to the wrong
There are some women coming from inside town who have tents here. They have been registered as beneficiaries. When officials are distributing anything, you would see these women in tents posing as displaced people.
They are not really displaced and the camp officials know but they don’t want to do anything because they know them personally. A lot of us have complained bitterly about this yet more people come to camp from town, to share in the food and non-food items donated to us.
We are afraid to speak out because we might be delisted from the food ration register by conniving camp officials. Some volunteers of the aid organisations are conniving with local camp officials in return for favours from the illegal aid beneficiaries.
When we wait in line for materials, about half of the people on the queue are friends and family of the traditional head of this area. Sometimes they ask us to go to the traditional head’s house after collecting aid so we can share our portion.
Some of the people coming from town pay a small price for the food ticket. You can get the food ticket for N3,000 and it is worth paying for because you would get a monthly food package worth about N20,000 for the next six months. You pay through an agent and you would get the ticket in no time. It is a good deal but it is affecting us, displaced people, who need the materials.
(Additional reporting by Fatima Bukar and Yakura Kumshe)
Note: IDP Diaries is a first-person account by the subject themselves. The account has been translated for reading by HumAngle.
This is a multiple-part series; click here to read other IDP Diaries.
This report is a partnership between HumAngle Media and Premium Times Center for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) under the ‘Accountability Journalism & Investigative Reporting for Deepening Democracy and Development’ project.
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