President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday in London got resounding accolades at the United Kingdom’s House of Lords for sustaining the war against Boko Haram and degrading their ability to attack and abduct children.
Presenting a speech at the House of Lords under the headship of Lord David Ramsbotham, President of Jose Foundation, Prince Martins Abhulimhen, who on the invitation of the Lords to brief the parliament on the role of non governmental organisation in helping the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and children in Nigeria, told the parliamentarian that the ability of the federal government to equip the Nigerian military with the right equipment has helped in turning the heat on the insurgents.
Abhulimhen, while expressing gratitude to the British Parliament for the rare invitation, disclosed that the 10 months old government of President Buhari has been able to repeal the insurgents and create safe camps for internally displaced people, a majority of whom he said are children.
He told the Lords that the safe environment created by the federal government in recent days has provided the opportunity for nongovernmental organisations to move into the various IDPs camps to provide the much needed humanitarian services.
He emphasised the need to critically look at the conditions of the people living in the various camps all over the northeast with the aim of rehabilitating them and prepare them for a new life after the crisis.
“We now can show our zeal as it is safe to work in such camps. The internally displaced people is part of what I have come here to sensitise your Lordships about. For the first time in the history of Nigeria, we have a discipline, corrupt free leadership under the impeccable person of President Muhammadu Buhari, which without any doubt will make our tasks a lot easier,” he said.
The Jose Foundation also frowned at the wave of abduction of young girls, forced into marriages and conversion of their religion by some Nigerians in recent times.
Abhulimhen cited the recent case of the abduction of Delta State born teenager Miss Ese Oruru from Yenagoa, Bayelsa State to Kano State by one Yunusa Dahiru (alias Yellow), condemning the act and pledge his foundation’s commitment to rehabilitate the teenager.
He noted that the Jose Foundation is partnering with Save the Children Organisation UK, Nepal Child Rescue Foundation, the Wellbeing Foundation and other like-minded nongovernmental organisations to help the Nigerian government ease this burden and end “this crisis and humanitarian catastrophe”.
He reminded the parliamentarians that over 200 children from the Chibok village in Borno State are still missing, “though the government is also making tremendous efforts to bring back the girls. Many children need expert care and counselling to help them return to normal life”.
The Jose Foundation was established in 2003, following the visit of her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh when she challenged the Government and People of Nigeria to address and eradicate the circumstances that led to the pitiful state of the displaced children in Nigeria vis-a-vis Africa.
The Jose Foundation has over the past decades reached out to the less privileged and made progress through contributions and financial assistance in relevant sectors of the Nigerian polity through government institutions such as hospitals, motherless babies homes and institutions that protect the disabled.
But there have recently been insurgence and ethnic upheavals leading to high levels of violence and kidnappings in the Niger Delta areas and much more recently Islamic fundamentalism by the Boko Haram group in Nigeria’s Northeast unleashing violence at an unprecedented level, including the use of abducted children, especially young females, who were brain washed into carrying out suicide bombing.
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