Governor Babagana Zulum conducting a headcount to ascertain the actual numbers of IDPs in Abadam LGA.
By SADIQ ABUBAKAR, Maiduguri-
Around midnight on Sunday, Borno Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum showed up for a head count at Mohammed Goni College of Islamic Legal Studies in Maiduguri, where internally displaced persons from Abadam LGA of Northern Borno were being camped.
NATIONAL ACCORD gathered that The Governor immediately sealed entrance and supervise a headcount to identify actual IDPs, in order to put a stop to rampant cases of dubious residents pretending to be displaced, who spend days at IDP camps to share food meant for IDPs.
Governor Zulum’s mission, which ended past 1am, discovered that out of 1,000 households in the records of humanitarian officials, 650 households were ghosts.
450 households were found to be real IDPs after Zulum’s midnight headcount which was conducted by the governor alongside an official of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, Air Commodore M. T. Abdullahi, and two commissioners (Agriculture, and Local Government and Emirate Affairs).
In humanitarian system, a household normally consist of at least six persons who are either related through families, or chosen to stay together for the purpose of receiving household aids.
Officials who were part of the midnight headcount said Governor Zulum was not averse to approving support for any citizen who may be vulnerably in need of food since there is a committee doing that, however, the Governor is vehemently opposed to some residents making dubious claims in other to take what is meant for IDPs while also benefiting from other existing welfare activities that target non IDPs.