Responding to the Inflow of Insurgency Victims to the Southern Nigeria: Issues and Solution

Abstract

There  is  a  unique  set  of  forcefully  displaced  persons  from  Bandits,  Terrorists  and  Boko  Haram insurgency affected areas in the north-eastern part of Nigeria that wandered to the southern part of the country, majority of them we see today as okada (bike) riders. These people are not in any IDP center or camp, but came to settle down among the people whose culture and religion is different from theirs. Existing studies on peace building and conflict transformation processes have been on how to minimize conflicts and make peace a lasting process. However, scanty attention is given to people affected by the insurgency and compellingly displaced from their ancestral homes. This research examined to what magnitude the people of the south are responding to transforming the lives of these migrated displaced persons. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among fifty randomly selected persons in Ibadan metropolis. Some available documents were also used in analyzing the collected data. The study revealed that the government does not pay attention to this set of people and the public is not doing anything to responding to transforming the lives of the migrated displaced persons in their area, those who have become a kind of menace in communities where they settled down because they are left to struggle for survival which has led them to pick jobs they were never trained for such as Okada riders through which many people have been maimed or killed. It is recommended that the government should be proactive to keep a register of these displaced people in order to respond to transforming their lives, and faith-based organizations should intensify their efforts in responding to transforming their lives and they should start having documented records for these efforts.