Senators Visit IDP Camps in Gassol, Taraba State
Two Senators are currently visiting Taraba state to access the extent of damage caused by insurgency; including the current situation of Internally Displaced Persons. The Senators are part of an 8-man adhoc Committee on North East Development.
They are Senator Emmanuel Bwacha of Southern Taraba Senatorial district and Senator Yahaya Gaya from Kano South Senatorial district, who was also a former governor of Kano state.
The Senators met with the Executive Governor of Taraba state, Gov. Darius Ishaku yesterday Monday 14th November 2016, to inform him of their mission. Today, they visited two IDP camps in Gassol Local Government Area of Taraba state. The Mutum Biyu camp and the Sabon gida camp.
The team’s delegation to Gassol included Hon. Anthony Jellason, the Secretary to the State government, the Executive Secretary of SEMA, and some top government officials.
They first stopped over at the Mutum Biyu camp where they were received by the local Government Chairman, Hon. Yahuza Yaú and some of the people of the Community. Sen. Bwacha specifically explained how the Committee will be funded by 3% of the state government’s revenue, together with other sources of funds, to finance their resettlement and empowerment.
Sen. Bwacha also encouraged the people to keep religious differences aside and live together in Peace, stressing that those who steal government money normally don’t bring religion into it; but use religion and ethnicity to cause divisions, which is most unacceptable.
Sen. Gaya who elaborated on their mission, encouraged them that their suffering will soon be over. He further went on to stress Bwacha’s popularity in the upper house, and how he never shows religious sentiments when dealing with issues.
The head of the IDP camp, Mallam Rayyanu Umar, responded by thanking the delegation for visiting them and giving them cash gifts; after enumerating the problems the IDPs are passing through to include poor living conditions, high incidence of snakes, scorpions and mosquitos, lack of education, water etc.
The Sabon gida camp also had hundreds of IDPs, most of which came from their farms, since facilities at the church camp cannot accommodate them. They also listed shortage of food, seizure of some of their farmlands by local chiefs, lack of education for their kids and poor living conditions as problems that needed urgent attention.