There is a fresh security threat in Imo State over an alleged plan by the Federal Government to relocate repentant Boko Haram insurgents, refugees, migrants and Internally Displaced Persons from the North to the South Eastern state for rehabilitation and training.
Stakeholders in the state have warned Governor Hope Uzodimma against using facilities in Imo to accommodate former terror combatants and refugees from the North when there has never been a concrete plan by the state government to rehabilitate IDPs in the state.
They said the plan to use the state as a training ground for non-indigenes is already brewing attacks and arson in the state, advising that the alleged plan be jettisoned.
Recall that some suspected arsonists had torched the residence of a former lawmaker, Senator Frank Ibezim, at Ezeoke-Nsu in Ehime Mbano Local Government Area of Imo.
In the same area, the suspects also burnt down some facilities at the National Open University of Nigeria Study Center.
The dastardly attacks were coming on the heels of a viral video report that the Federal Government planned to renovate the NOUN facility as a training ground for repentant Boko Haram insurgents.
The video followed a recent inspection visit by the Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, Tijani Mohammed, to the national training facility for the vulnerable, located inside the NOUN study centre.
Mohammed, who was accompanied on the visit by Ibezim, reportedly said in a news interview that the inspection was in view of a training programme for vulnerable persons, which would commence at the centre before the end of the year.
A member of the community suspected that the attacks might have been prompted by the video report that repentant insurgents would be relocated and trained at the NOUN facility.
“A lot of our people raised their voices against this Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) training project in that place, especially where there are no existence of IDPs in the state. The planners of that project were insensitive to the agitation in the area,” the source said.
A community leader, who also pleaded anonymity, lamented over the destruction of the NOUN buildings by the suspected arsonists. He regretted that the NOUN facility also housed Ezeoke Girls’ Secondary School, with a boarding facility.
“With the razing down of the buildings, the community has lost the only boarding school and a NOUN facility in our area,” he further lamented.
Confirming the attacks, the Commissioner of Police, Aboki Danjuma, described them as barbaric and condemnable.
While condemning attacks on government and individuals’ facilities in the state, a human rights activist, Chinonso Uba, berated the state government for approving facilities in the state to be used for training of outsiders when there are vulnerable groups in the state that have been neglected by the state government.
He said, “It was not mentioned that the IDPs to be trained in that Center would come from Orsu, Orlu, Izombe, Agwa, Okigwe or even Akabo where we have Displaced Persons whose houses were burnt down between 2020 and 2024.
“This was the height of conflict as no one who saw the said news report would believe it wasn’t for the Northern IDPs. Giving the volatile nature of Imo State and the daily report of Fulani herdsmen abducting Imolites around FUTO, Ihiagwa, Nekede, Obinze, Avu, Oforola, Eziobodo and other vulnerable places in Owerri West LGA of Imo State, Imo people are apprehensive of such move to Camp IDPs in Ehime Mbano of the state.”
Also rejecting the planned establishment of IDP camp in the state, the Indigenous People of Biafra, in a statement issued by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, accused the Nigerian government of plans to dispossess people of the communities of their ancestral lands and heritage, saying “it will not work.”
Powerful said, “They have tried all forms of land grabbing techniques with different names such as RUGA, and these all failed. Now they want to import so-called displaced persons from Northern Nigeria, a distance of thousands of kilometres away from their locality and homeland into Imo State.
“These people never set up skills acquisition programmes for the millions of jobless youths in our land but consider bringing in Boko Haram foot soldiers into the South East in the name of skills acquisition for internally displaced persons.”
Meanwhile, Senator Ibezim who was one of the inspection team for the training, debunked insinuation that repentant Boko Haram combatants would be imported to Imo for training, clarifying that the centre would be used to train vulnerable groups in Imo.
“For emphasis, I must restate that there are no plans to settle IDPs, Refugees or Migrant persons at the National Open University Centre, Nsu, Ehime Mbano LGA. Any such claim is categorically false. I will never be part of such a plan. The plan is for skills training for our vulnerable young people from the South East,” the former lawmaker whose residence was torched allegedly over the development, said.
