The Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, has said that the commission will continue doing its to ensure adequate protection and assistance of refugees, asylum seekers, returnees, stateless persons, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and migrants.
Speaking Tuesday in Abuja during a courtesy visit by executives of the National Institute for Security Studies (NISS), Sulaiman-Ibrahim said that “insurgency and insurrection around the country has led to displacement of millions of Nigerians from their homes, but the Commission is committed to providing durable solutions for PoCs and ensuring they are returned to their states of origin or resettled in a humane and dignified manner.”
She said: “NCFRMI is mandated to lead and coordinate national action for the protection and assistance of refugees, asylum seekers, returnees, stateless persons, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and migrants. All these categories of persons are referred to as Persons of Concern (PoCs) to the Commission.
“The NCFRMI has the statutory responsibility to provide coordination for migration and development related activities in Nigeria. The Commission also serves as the coordinating body for all migration related issues, while ensuring that all the different actors involved carry out their mandates within certain agreed standards and for the purpose of achieving the core objectives.
“The NCFRMI designed the National Migration Dialogue in 2015 as a strategy for mainstreaming migration into the country’s Development Agenda. The Commission also led in the design of the Nigerian National Migration Policy, which addresses the multifaceted issues of migration, and create a win-win situation for migrants and countries of origin, transit and destination.
“Arising from insurgency and insurrection around the country, millions of Nigerians have been displaced from their homes. The Commission is committed to providing durable solutions for Persons of Concern (PoCs) and ensuring they are returned to their states of origin or resettled in a humane and dignified manner.
“The NCFRMI developed the Resettlement and Reintegration Programme, which entails building resettlement cities that targeted an initial four states of Borno, Katsina, Edo and Zamfara, each city with 600 houses, a primary healthcare centre, educational learning centre, skills acquisition centre, recreational area and a solar powered bole hole.
“The Commission is currently in the process of refining thoughts and using the lessons learnt from the 1st phase to fine tune and develop an improved plan to capture and include more PoCs.
“The Commission in partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria also developed ‘Project Reliance’, a large-scale empowerment programme that will allow our PoCs be beneficiaries to CBN Development programs. 125,000 PoCs have been captured. A pilot stage of 10,000 beneficiaries is about to take-off.”
She added: “The National Policy on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria is currently on its way to the Federal Executive Council for final approval. It is a policy that spells out principles guiding humanitarian assistance and implementation of durable solutions in situations of internal displacement in Nigeria. Implementation of this Policy document translates to the domestication of the Kampala convention, which is the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa.
“The Federal Government is committed to ensuring that Nigeria is a Refugee friendly country through the implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), in Nigeria. The Commission has attained giant strides in fulfilling the pledges made at the Global Compact on Refugee (GCR) Forum which held in Switzerland in December 2019.
“Nevertheless, we face challenges of insufficient funding, Post Covid-19 peculiarities affecting PoCs, Synergy between humanitarian actors, inadequate data on PoCs, need for office space and infrastructure for data/profiling centre.
“However, the Commission’s renewed vision is targeted not only to address the consequences affecting our PoCs, but to also tackle the root causes by ensuring the prioritization of economic empowerment, while the commission taps into funded global initiatives and funded development programmes in order to maximize value, as well as to major on diplomacy and development.
“The Humanitarian field is a call to service to Humanity, hence the Commission’s clarion call for support in line with the National Action Plan for Internally Displaced Persons in Nigeria.”
