Nigerian IDP Camps: Insecurity, Squalor and Inhuman Conditions

One of the greatest challenges the Government has faced in the last two decades, is taking care of the growing population of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). The circumstances which have necessitated the displacement of persons from across the country are still very much present, and the number persons taking refuge in IDP Camps is increasing astronomically as time passes. Sabastine Anyia, Emmanuel  Nnadozie Onwubiko and Okechukwu Nwanguma, share their views on why the number of IDPs is on the rise; why the problems related thereto appear to be intractable; criminality in IDP Camps and issues of insecurity which resulted in them being constrained to take refuge in these Camps, still occurring there; the deplorable, inhuman conditions IDPs face, ranging from living in makeshift accommodation that is unfit for human habitation; hunger and malnutrition to poor sanitary conditions, to disease and lack of healthcare, sexual exploitation of women and girls coupled with teenage pregnancies, no educational facilities for children and other human rights violations within the Camps, while proffering solutions on how to ameliorate the suffering of the IDPs and treat them with the dignity they deserve, seeing as they enjoy the same fundamental rights as anybody else

Human Rights Violations in IDP Camps: A Call for Immediate Presidential Action

Sabastine Anyia

Representatives of civil society organisations, humanitarian partners, displaced persons, and all stakeholders present,

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I rise today with a profound sense of urgency and moral duty as the 1st Vice President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)  and Chairman of the Human Rights Institute. This is not just a speech, but a clarion call to conscience. We speak not only for legal principles, nor for policy debates, but for the voiceless, the internally displaced women, children, and men who today languish in camps across our nation, living in conditions that represent flagrant violations of basic human rights.

Setting the Stage: Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and IDPs

Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution affirms the dignity of the human person and guarantees the right to life, personal liberty, and security of the person. Nigeria is a party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Kampala Convention on Internal Displacement, and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. These instruments impose on the State, a legal and moral obligation to protect displaced persons from harm, ensure the provision of basic services, and facilitate their safe return or resettlement. Yet, despite these commitments, we stand today in a moment of stark contradiction.

 More than 3.6 million Nigerians are internally displaced.

In North-Central and North-West Nigeria alone, over 1.3 million IDPs currently live in camps or camp-like settings, often under dire circumstances.

Recent surveys show alarming indicators: in Yobe State, 92% of IDP households reported “poor or very poor living conditions” in camps. These statistics are not abstract, they reflect ongoing systemic violations of human rights, dignity, and justice.

Human Stories: Lives at the Mercy of Neglect

To understand the human rights crisis unfolding in IDP camps, we must look beyond numbers. There are several camps in Borno and Benue State, where I have personally visited as the Chairman of NBA-HRI where mothers had lost children to preventable illnesses, and youth with wasted years without schooling. Some have shelters that flood with rain, others had births in camp toilets without medical attention. 

 In Benue State, Amnesty International has documented that over 500,000 displaced people are living in squalid camps or makeshift sites, facing shortages of food, water, shelter, and medical care.

A particular woman in Makurdi IDP camp, after fleeing her village following violent attacks, told investigators: “We lost everything, our homes, our farmland, and now our hope. We don’t sleep at night because of fear. At least, feed us and give us dignity while we wait”.

These testimonies reveal not only displacement, but a prolonged human rights violation of the right to health, the right to shelter, the right to education, and the right to live in dignity.

Identifying the Violations: Where the System Fails

From a human rights lens, the conditions in many IDP camps across Nigeria reflect multiple and overlapping violations:

1. Right to Health and Life: Overcrowded camps, inadequate sanitation, lack of potable water, and limited access to essential medical services have contributed to outbreaks of cholera, malaria, malnutrition, and maternal and neonatal complications. These Reports Reports from Borno, Yobe, and Benue indicate that many IDPs die from preventable illnesses, deaths the Government could and should have prevented.

2. Right to Adequate Housing: Shelter in IDP camps is often temporary, makeshift, and vulnerable. During flood seasons or heavy rains, tents and basic shelters fail, exposing families to the elements, diseases, and further displacement. Many IDP camps themselves, become flood-prone sites.

3. Right to Education: Thousands of children in displacement, have had their education disrupted or ended altogether. Many camps lack functional schools; in places where makeshift schools existed, funding is inconsistent and teachers unpaid. This interruption of education, threatens the future of a generation. Amnesty International noted that camp schools in Makurdi had been closed for over three years, because of lack of funding.

4. Protection from Violence and Exploitation: Women and girls in IDP camps are at heightened risk of sexual and gender-based violence, abuse, exploitation, and early marriage. In many cases, survivors lack access to justice or adequate post-violence support. IDPs have also described ongoing threats from armed groups, who attack camps or nearby host communities. In Benue, gunmen attacks have compounded the vulnerabilities of displaced populations.

Right to Identity and Civic Participation: Many displaced persons lose personal documentation, birth certificates, land titles, identity papers, during conflict or displacement. Without such documentation, they are excluded from access to social services, voting rights, financial inclusion, and legal redress. This loss of identity, is both a symbolic and practical violation of citizenship and dignity.

Right to Livelihoods and Food Security: Displacement often severs access to farmland, markets, and income sources. Many IDPs cannot engage in meaningful livelihoods, and rely on sporadic humanitarian aid. Food insecurity is widespread: nutrition surveys show rising rates of malnutrition, especially among children and pregnant women, which is a direct threat to life and human dignity.

 These violations are not incidental. They reflect systemic neglect, ineffective camp management, weak infrastructure, and gaps in policy implementation. They signal not only a humanitarian crisis, but a profound breach of State responsibility.

Cost of Inaction: Why Delay is Dangerous

It is important to note that failing to address the plight of IDPs is not only a moral failure, it is a strategic threat to national stability, development, and unity.

Lost Generation: Children who miss years of schooling are less likely to ever return, less likely to find gainful employment, and more likely to become disengaged citizens. They risk becoming prey to radicalisation, criminal recruitment, or permanent destitution.

Deepening Human Rights Trauma: Prolonged displacement without meaningful intervention compounds trauma. Mental health challenges, social breakdown, and psychosocial distress become entrenched, placing long-term burdens on host communities and healthcare systems.

Social Friction and Conflict: Prolonged camp situations and forced or unmanaged returns can spark frictions between IDPs and host communities over scarce resources, land, water, food, security. Without careful planning, the return of displaced persons can reignite violence, resentment, and communal conflict.

Erosion of Trust in Governance: Citizens who perceive themselves abandoned by the State, lose faith in public institutions. This erosion of trust reduces government legitimacy, weakens civic engagement, and fuels cycles of conflict and displacement.

Economic and Developmental Costs: Displacement disrupts local economies. Agricultural production falls, markets suffer, and recovery becomes more expensive over time. The cost of managing prolonged displacement far exceeds the cost of early, dignified, and rights-based responses.

 It’s important to note that, inaction is not a neutral position. It is a decision, a decision that sanctions suffering, disrupts lives, and undermines the nation’s future.

An Urgent Call for Presidential Leadership and Action

The point at which this discussion meets decision, is here and now. The NBA Human Rights Institute calls upon your leadership to take immediate, decisive, and lasting action to redress the human rights crisis in IDP camps. Specifically, we urge you to:

 1. This issue is an emergency, it is eminent to Issue a Presidential Emergency Directive on IDP Human Rights Protection. This directive should activate a cross-Ministry task force empowered to mobilise resources, monitor human rights standards in camps, and coordinate with State Governments, humanitarian partners, and civil society.

2. Establish a National IDP Rights Protection Fund. This fund, overseen by an independent monitoring committee, would provide emergency funding for shelter, water, sanitation, healthcare, nutrition, education, and camp infrastructure improvements, ensuring that IDPs have access to dignified living conditions.

3. Mandate Regular Human Rights Monitoring and Reporting. Through the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), in collaboration with the NBA-HRI and international partners, there must be scheduled human rights audits of all IDP camps, with transparent reporting and accountability mechanisms for violations.

4. Promote Legal Identity Restoration. Launch a nationwide campaign to provide displaced persons with birth certificates, national identity cards, and other essential documentation. This would restore IDPs’ civic rights, access to services, and ability to participate in elections and economic activities.

5. Guarantee Education in Displacement. Direct the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and State education authorities to deploy mobile schools, support teachers in IDP camps, and provide materials, so that displaced children have continuous access to quality education without interruption.

6. Ensure Access to Adequate Healthcare, Nutrition, and Psychosocial Services. Establish camp-based clinics staffed with qualified personnel, maternal and child health services, immunisation campaigns, mental health support, and nutrition screening programmes to address both physical and psychological needs.

7. Strengthen Protection Against Gender-Based Violence. Provide safe spaces for women and girls, legal aid services, and survivor-centred care. Ensure that perpetrators of violence are held accountable, that survivors receive medical and legal support, and that prevention strategies are integrated into camp planning.

8. Design Rights-Based Resettlement and Reintegration Programmes. Any plans to close or relocate camps should involve meaningful consultation with displaced communities, uphold the principle of voluntary return, ensure safe and dignified resettlement, and provide support for livelihoods and property restoration. Forced or unconsulted camp closures, as observed in parts of Borno State, have violated the rights of displaced persons and destabilised communities.

9. Facilitate Economic Livelihoods and Self-Reliance for IDPs. Support IDP households with vocational training, cash assistance, agricultural inputs, and micro-enterprise grants to enable them to rebuild their lives, rather than depend wholly on aid.

6. NBA-HRI’s Role and Offer of Partnership. The NBA Human Rights Institute, does not present this discourse as a distant observer. We stand ready to partner fully, in implementing these recommendations.

Monitoring and Documentation: We will deploy trained human rights monitors to document violations, provide legal assistance for victims, and produce regular reports on camp conditions.

Legal Aid and Advocacy: We will support displaced persons in reclaiming their rights, whether to housing, identity, compensation, or justice, through legal representation, public interest litigation, and strategic advocacy.

Capacity Building: We offer to train camp administrators, State officials, and humanitarian actors on international standards of displacement protection, human rights law, and gender-sensitive practices.

Community Outreach and Education: NBA-HRI will facilitate awareness campaigns on rights, civic participation, peaceful reintegration, and the legal obligations of the State, empowering displaced communities to engage with the process actively and confidently.

Conclusion: A Pivotal Moment for Nigeria’s Humanity and Legacy

Nigeria is a nation founded on the promise of dignity, liberty, and the protection of the vulnerable. How we respond to the crisis of displaced citizens is not just a measure of our policy effectiveness, it is a reflection of our national character, our collective values, and our commitment to constitutional and international obligations.

We are at a crossroads. We can allow this crisis to linger, watch displacement become perpetual, and allow generations to grow up without homes, education, or hope. Or we can declare an emergency that is decisive and compassionate, that no Nigerian is expendable. That the suffering of displaced persons is not a footnote in our national story, but a call to action, to justice, and to restoration.

Let this administration be remembered not for the crisis it inherited, but for the humanity it revived, for the displaced mothers who could feed their children, for the young girl who could return to school, for the father who could till his land again in peace, and for the communities that were healed and restored.

History awaits. The time to act is now. Let us press forward, with urgency, with compassion, and with justice, to reclaim the dignity of those whom displacement has forgotten.

Sabastine Anyia, 1st Vice President, Nigerian Bar Association; Chairman, NBA Human Rights Institute

IDPs Also Have Human Rights

Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko 

Statistics 

statista published a report dated: December 12, 2022, on the complications and difficulties faced by internally displaced persons in Nigeria as follows:

Nigeria has the third highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa. In 2020, it counted 2.7 million internally displaced people. Overall, Africa has the largest number of IDPs in the world.

Internally displaced persons are persons who are forced to leave their houses, but remain within their country’s borders.

Then Dr Mercel Mbamalu, a Journalist, published in punchng dated 4th September, 2025, and made the following germane points on the issues of IDPS in the country. 

He said: “As I step into the overcrowded IDP camps, I’m met with the haunting reality of Nigeria’s humanitarian crisis. Over 3 million internally displaced persons are struggling to survive, their lives ravaged by insurgency, banditry, and communal clashes. The statistics are staggering: 1.8 million children at risk of severe acute malnutrition, 55% of IDPs being children pushed out of schools, and at least, 18 people dying daily at the Bama camp, Borno State. The European Union’s recent aid commitments, including €35 million in humanitarian assistance, are a lifeline; however, the Nigerian Government’s response has been woefully inadequate, with chronic underfunding, mismanagement, and corruption exacerbating the crisis.

The impact of the US aid withdrawal, continues to reverberate globally. In January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order, “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid”. The programme effectively suspends large portions of aid delivered through USAID, including health sector funding for vaccines and treatments for diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, as well as humanitarian assistance programmes.

Other Western donors, such as the UK, France, Germany and Sweden, also significantly reduced foreign aid budgets in 2024 and 2025, thereby increasing financial pressure on many developing countries.

There are human beings behind the vague statistics we scroll past on our phones: mothers who wake up with the cold at dawn, because the thin plastic sheet over their family’s sleeping place does not stop the rain; children who go to sleep hungry, because food distributions are late or absent; survivors of sexual violence who cannot find a single safe, confidential place to report abuse or heal. These are not abstractions. They are internally displaced persons (IDPs); people forced from their homes by conflict, violence, or disasters, who remain within their countries’ borders, yet, live daily lives that are often more precarious than refugees or even the poorest citizens. The moral and legal truth is simple: IDPs have human rights. The political and practical response, however, is woefully behind that fact”.

Globally, the scale of internal displacement has reached record proportions. By the end of 2024, some 83.4 million people were living in internal displacement; an unimaginable number of men, women and children denied the right to safety, shelter, water, health, education and dignity. Most were uprooted by conflict and violence; millions more fled floods, storms and other disasters increasingly linked to climate change. This is not someone else’s crisis; it is a global failure of prevention, protection and response. 

Deplorable Conditions 

Nigeria sits squarely, at the centre of one of the world’s most complex displacement crises. The humanitarian architecture that responds to the scale of need (UN agencies, national commissions, the International Organisation for Migration and countless NGOs) repeatedly warn that, millions of Nigerians either live in camps or in host communities that strain to accommodate them. By the end of 2024, government and humanitarian data point to millions displaced across the Northeast and other affected regions; responses remain underfunded, fragmented and, in far too many places, insufficient to uphold basic human rights.

When we say “deplorable conditions”, we must be specific. Reports from human rights organisations and humanitarian agencies describe overcrowded sites with inadequate shelter and insufficient latrines; unsafe water and collapsing waste management systems that make disease inevitable; food assistance falling short of caloric needs; health services absent or overwhelmed; children out of school and exposed to recruitment, abuse or exploitation; and women and girls facing heightened risks of gender-based violence with little or no access to protection, psychosocial care, or legal redress. In some settings, forced camp closures and hurried “returns” have been imposed without meaningful guarantees of safety or services, leaving people to fend for themselves in areas they fled precisely because those areas are insecure.

These violations are not regrettable accidents of chaos; they are failures of obligation. International law and regional instruments make clear that, States bear the primary duty to protect and assist people displaced within their borders. The UN’s Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (1998) articulate rights to protection and assistance, grounded in international human rights and humanitarian law. The African Union’s Kampala Convention reinforces those duties for African States, and commits governments to prevent displacement, protect displaced populations, and ensure durable solutions. These are not optional niceties; they are legal and moral commitments that require budgets, institutions and accountability.

Yet, the record reveals a yawning gap between law and lived reality. In Nigeria, humanitarian needs assessments and agency reports show that large shares of IDPs lack access to safe settlements, to clean water and latrines, to adequate shelter and to basic health services. Large-scale outbreaks of cholera, acute watery diarrhoea and other preventable diseases have repeatedly struck displacement settings where sanitation is deficient and access to vaccines and care is patchy. The United Nations has been forced to launch multi-hundred-million-dollar appeals for the Nigerian crisis, signalling both the scope of need and the chronic underfunding of the response. When the world fails to fund the basics (water, shelter, medicine) it is not just bureaucracy that suffers, it is human life and dignity.

Immediate Humanitarian Action, Midterm and Longterm Solutions 

What must change, and how, if we are serious that “IDPs have human rights” is not a slogan but a standard? The answer needs to span immediate humanitarian action, mid-term protection and resilience programming, and long-term political and economic solutions rooted in justice and accountability. Below are the concrete steps that States, international partners, donors and civic actors should adopt immediately.

First, scale up humanitarian assistance with accountability. The international appeals for Nigeria’s crises are not abstract budgets; they are lifelines. Donor governments and multilateral institutions must fund the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan fully and predictably, and make funding conditional on demonstrable protection outcomes; not just distributions. Donor support should prioritise WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), essential primary health care including vaccination campaigns in camps, sufficient shelter and non-food items, and cash assistance that gives families dignity and choice. Funding must also support protection services: safe spaces for women and girls, child protection programmes, legal aid for documentation, and psychosocial support. The UN’s appeals and sector plans provide a template that must be matched by political will and resources.

Second, respect and implement rights in law and practice. Nigeria and other African States, must fully operationalise the Kampala Convention and domestic policies to ensure IDPs’ rights to security, humanitarian assistance, documentation and durable solutions. The National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (and similar bodies) should be empowered with adequate budgets, staffing, and legal authority to coordinate durable solutions, registration and protection. Governments must stop forced or premature camp closures and returns until verifiable conditions (safety, services, livelihoods) are in place for returnees. The law provides the framework; it is implementation that is missing.

Third, prioritise protection and accountability. Protection is not peripheral; it is central. IDP sites must be safe spaces where women, children and other vulnerable groups can access confidential reporting, medical and psychosocial care, and legal redress. Human rights organisations have repeatedly documented abuses in displacement settings (including sexual violence, unlawful detention and arbitrary treatment by State actors) that require investigations and accountability. Security operations should protect, not punish, displaced people. The State must ensure security-sector training on human rights and civilian protection, and investigate allegations of abuse swiftly and transparently.

Fourth, integrate humanitarian response with social protection and development. Camps are not permanent solutions; neither is perpetual humanitarian dependency. National social protection systems must include IDPs – cash transfers, health insurance, access to education and vocational training. Donors and development actors should shift from short-term emergency projects to medium-term programmes that create pathways to livelihoods, housing rehabilitation, and community reconciliation. These investments reduce long-term costs, and stabilise communities that would otherwise become chronic zones of deprivation and recruitment by violent actors. The UN and development partners have frameworks for such transitions; what is missing is sustained financing and political commitment.

Fifth, place displaced people at the centre of solutions. Too often, humanitarian programmes are top-down. IDPs are not passive beneficiaries; they are rights-holders. Genuine participation means involving camp residents and displaced-led organisations in camp management, protection monitoring, and programme design. When people are given leadership roles and avenues to earn income (through vocational training, small grants, cooperative projects) their dignity is restored, and social cohesion with host communities improves. UN and NGO partners have documented the positive outcomes of refugee- and IDP-led initiatives; scaling these models is common sense.

Sixth, improve data, registration and documentation. Lack of identity documents is a practical barrier to accessing services, cash, education and legal protections. Robust, secure registration systems, in partnership with national civil registration authorities, must be funded and implemented to ensure IDPs are visible in national planning. Data collection must be disaggregated by age, gender and vulnerability, so that responses are tailored and equitable. UN and Government registration exercises have made progress in parts of Nigeria, but gaps remain and affect protection outcomes.

Seventh, prepare for and prevent health crises. Cholera and acute watery diarrhoea outbreaks in displacement settings are preventable with proper WASH, timely vaccination campaigns, and functioning health referral systems. Health Ministries, with support from WHO, UNICEF and partners, must prioritise cholera vaccination where risks are high, and ensure ready surge capacity during outbreaks. Investing in WASH infrastructure in camps and host communities, is cheaper and morally superior to reacting to preventable epidemics. Recent outbreaks in displacement-affected areas, underscore this urgency.

Eighth, invest in durable housing, land and property rights. When people can return, they must have real choices: safe return with restored property rights and services; local integration with access to land and livelihoods; or assisted resettlement elsewhere. Governments should implement transparent processes for land restitution, compensation and reconstruction that protect property rights and prevent renewed conflict. Durable housing solutions, are as much a justice issue as a development one.

Ninth, demand political solutions to drivers of displacement. Relief without prevention, will only sustain a cycle of suffering. Long-term reductions in displacement require political engagement to resolve conflicts, address root grievances, hold perpetrators of violence to account and strengthen local governance. International partners must support diplomacy, conflict mediation and inclusive governance reforms that tackle the structural causes of displacement. Human rights must be at the centre of any peace process.

Finally, ordinary citizens and local civil society matter. Solidarity can take many forms: local host communities need support and recognition; grassroots groups can be funded to deliver services and protection; journalists can keep attention on the crisis and hold authorities to account; faith organisations and professional associations can advocate for humane treatment. In a functioning democracy, citizens pressure leaders to spend tax revenue on human dignity, rather than the narrow interests of a few. Public outrage and sustained media attention, have forced policy changes before; they can do so again.

We must also be honest, about why the response falters. Governments in affected areas, often face genuine capacity constraints: stretched budgets, overstretched health systems, insecurity restricting access, and competing national priorities. International donors, too, have finite resources and a crowded list of global emergencies. But, these realities do not absolve us of responsibility; they demand smarter, rights – based prioritisation, better coordination and an insistence that those in authority live up to commitments they signed on to years ago. The difference between a credible response and the status quo, is political will: allocating funds, protecting civilians, prosecuting abuses, and centring rights in recovery plans.

There is also a deeper moral point. The phrase “IDPs have human rights”, should not be reserved for political speeches or NGO banners. It should translate into practice: a roof that keeps rain and heat at bay; a latrine that does not sow disease; a classroom for a child; the ability for a mother to work safely; access to documentation, so a life can be rebuilt. Rights are not rhetorical flourishes; they are the scaffolding of dignity. When any State allows millions to linger in conditions that erode those scaffolds, it betrays its own constitution and the international promises it has made.

To Editors and Publishers: an op-ed like this is an urgent editorial imperative. Shine your light, where it matters most. To Donors: fund the basics and condition support on measurable protection outcomes. To Governments: translate laws into budgets, and bureaucracies into protection machinery. To Citizens: do not look away. The lives behind these statistics are your neighbours in a moral sense; they are human beings entitled to the same rights as any of us.

If we succeed (by scaling assistance, embedding rights in law and practice, ensuring protection and accountability, and investing in durable solutions), we will do more than alleviate suffering. We will restore the most elemental social contract: that the State protects the dignity of everyone within its borders. That must be the minimum demand of our time. IDPs have human rights. Let us, at last, act like we believe it.

Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko, Founder, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria; past National Commissioner, National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria 

Nigeria’s Internally Displaced Deserve Dignity, Not Death

Okechukwu Nwanguma

The Ugly Reality 

The horror that unfolded in Darul Jamal, Borno State, where at least 63 people – including families recently resettled from an IDP camp – were massacred by jihadists, should outrage every Nigerian. It is also a tragic reminder, that our country’s approach to the humanitarian crisis in the Northeast is deeply flawed.

For more than a decade, millions of Nigerians have lived in the shadows of displacement, their homes burned, families torn apart, and livelihoods destroyed by Boko Haram and its offshoot, ISWAP. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe have endured years of indignity in overcrowded camps where hunger, disease, and insecurity are constant companions. Children are denied education, women and girls face sexual exploitation, and men languish without work or dignity.

Yet, instead of addressing these deplorable conditions, the Government has pursued a policy of forcefully shutting down IDP camps, often in the name of “stability” or “normalcy”. Families are herded back to unsafe communities, or resettled in areas where jihadists still roam freely. The Darul Jamal massacre is the direct and foreseeable consequence of this ill-conceived policy. These families were promised safety. Instead, they were abandoned to slaughter.

Governor Babagana Zulum himself admitted that the Nigerian military is overstretched, and cannot guarantee security across resettled areas. If the State cannot defend military bases from insurgents, how can it claim to protect unarmed civilians sent back to vulnerable communities?

 The plight of IDPs is not just a humanitarian tragedy; it is a national security failure. Camps that should serve as sanctuaries, have become warehouses of human misery. Closing them without providing real safety, infrastructure, and livelihoods is a betrayal of the displaced and an invitation to further bloodshed.

What must be done? 

First, the Government must halt premature camp closures. Resettlement should be voluntary, safe, and dignified, not dictated by political timelines. 

Second, the conditions in existing camps must be urgently improved – regular food supplies, healthcare, sanitation, education, and livelihood support must be prioritised. 

Third, a rights-based approach to displacement is non-negotiable. Nigeria has obligations under the Kampala Convention to protect and assist IDPs. Those obligations are being violated.

 Finally, security in the Northeast must be reimagined. Military deployments alone cannot end this war. Local intelligence, community engagement, and regional cooperation are vital. Above all, the displaced themselves must be heard. They are not statistics; they are human beings with the right to safety, dignity, and a future.

 The massacre in Darul Jamal, should serve as a wake-up call. We cannot continue sacrificing the most vulnerable Nigerians, on the altar of political expediency. IDPs have suffered enough in camps; they should not be sent to die in their ancestral homes. A Government that cannot protect its displaced citizens, has abdicated its most basic responsibility.

 Nigeria’s displaced deserve more than empty promises. They deserve dignity. They deserve protection. They deserve life.

Okechukwu Nwanguma, Founder and Executive Director, RUULAC