Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) has called on well-meaning individuals, non-governmental organisations and top-notch schools nationwide to assist the over 47,000 vulnerable children at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in the Northeast.
Osinbajo, who disclosed this in his keynote address at the Atlantic Hall 30th anniversary award dinner/ launching of N2bn endowment fund in Lagos at the weekend, stated that the crisis, which the insurgency left in their trail, was so complex and beyond what government alone could handle.
The Vice President said the Federal Government, through the Northeast Children Fund (NECF) initiative, had only succeeded in lifting barely 2,500.
The Vice President, who pleaded with Atlantic Hall Trust Council to partner with (NECF), decried the poor responses by humanitarian organisations to tragic situations.
“In 2015, I paid my first official visit to Maiduguri in Borno State to inspect some of Federal Government’s facilities like the IDP camps and others facilities for victims of the conflict in the Northeast,” he said.
“There, we counted 49, 245 young children who had lost their parents. Almost half of them were girls, and some of them were simply wandering around. And that was only in parts of Maiduguri metropolis. There were thousands more,” he added.
He also noted that the tragedy of conflict and its outcome in poverty and displacement is a serious one. He stressed that government alone cannot handle it.
“So we agreed to establish the Northeast Children Fund chaired by Mr Jim Ovia. The objective is to build learning centres and schools that can equip and handle traumatised children and give them world-class education and care.
“A lot of the funds have helped build some of these schools that are now accommodating over 1,500 children. The board has also taken over yet another school accommodating additional 700 (children), and we are now looking at the prospect of a bigger facility,” he said.
“There are still thousands of girls in the camp while some are still roaming on the street waiting for second chance. But only committed individuals and organisations of conscience can offer them hope,” he concluded.
