The North-East Development Commission (NEDC) has said that some of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North-East are unwilling to return to their ancestral homes.
The commission noted that the IDPs had so much integrated with the host communities that they saw no need to return to their original settlements.
The agency’s Executive Director, Humanitarian Affairs, Musa Yashi, disclosed this to State House Correspondents on Thursday at the 50th Session of the State House Briefing, organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.
Fielding questions on the challenges of resettling IDPs back to their home communities torn apart by the Boko Haram insurgency, Yashi noted that 20 to 30 per cent of displaced persons were not living in camps.
This demography, he said, had thrived in communities outside their homelands. Hence, their refusal to return home.
Citing the dismal condition of towns across Monguno, Yashi stated that resettlement would require the reconstruction of whole communities; a task so daunting that the NEDC did not have enough funds to undertake at this time.
