Borno State Government led by Governor Kashim Shettima recently set target of closing all Internally Displaced Persons’ [IDP] camps by next year.

Ceoafrica learnt that Governor Kashim Shettima said in Maiduguri ten days ago that the state has nearly two million displaced persons in which all aren’t living in camps, but staying with relatives and friends.

The most visible of the displaced persons are however the ones in 14 camps around Maiduguri in which the makeshift camps are mostly schools that were closed down in order to accommodate the IDPs as military forces last year recorded tremendous success in the fight against Boko Haram.

However the army rescued tens of thousands of innocent persons living under Boko Haram’s terrorist rule. These newly liberated IDPs, who were often in the worst of shapes food and health-wise, mostly entered the IDP camps in Maiduguri as well as those that were set up in recently liberated areas such as Bama.

Army Chief Lt General Tukur Buratai said “we agree entirely with Shettima that a target date should be set for the IDPs’ return to their homes. There are very good reasons why this should be so. The Borno State governor enumerated most of these reasons. He said, “If we allow the entrenchment of these IDP camps, they are pregnant with loads of challenges of prostitution, drug abuse, gangsterism.

We will be confronted with huge social challenges of an entitlement complex, of people feeling that they are entitled to be catered for. In as much as we observe the Kampala convention, we will not compel anybody to return to their communities”.