The Executive Secretary, Benue State Emergency Management Agency, BSEMA, Sir James Iorpuu has applauded development partners and the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, for their continued support in empowering vulnerable people in the state.
Iorpuu spoke at the weekend in Makurdi during a brief chat with journalists in his office.
He said donor agencies have sustained Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs ,through supply of food and non food relief items for the past seven years in the state and requested further assistance as the escalating humanitarian crisis has overwhelmed the state.
Iorpuu acknowledged the commitment of other International Donor Organizations, particularly the International Organization for Migration, IOM, which is currently in the state carrying out biometric verification of all IDPs with the view to ascertain the actual number of the displaced persons for better planning.
He said he was dismayed by the absence of verifiable data of IDPs in the state on assumption of office during his first meeting with development partners which is the reason for his commitment to the exercise.
” I was not comfortable with the information I received, I was given a stagnant figure of displaced persons between 2018-2023.
” I was told that Benue State has an IDP population of 2.1 million and my worry was that there was no movement either forward or backward, whether the camps had received new IDPs resulting to increase or decrease in figure,” he said.
