The situation in the Otese camp in Benue State is pathetic. JOHN CHARLES writes on the plight of the inmates mostly pregnant women and nursing mothers, who battle snakes and other reptiles amid deplorable living conditions
Life to some people is a bed of roses, beautiful, lovely and full of exciting moments but to others, it is miserable, like Thomas Hobbes captured it, “it is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
For inmates at the Otese Internally Displaced Persons camp located along Makurdi-Laafia federal highway, it is suffering and smiling for the displaced persons having been chased away from their ancestral homes by marauding herders.
The existing three blocks of classroom at the emergency camp were inadequate to accommodate over 11,000 inmates, this, according to the camp manager, Hur Ayabo, gave rise to the erection of shanties in the camp.
The camp was opened around April 2021 with near absence of the state government but the inmates were being catered for by a non-governmental organisation, Medecenes Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).
Of all the IDPs camps in the state, Otese camp is unique with the majority of inmates females who are in their 20s and early 30s either carrying pregnancy or nursing mothers.
But the camp manager humorously said that the unpleasant condition the people found themselves did not foreclose intimacy whenever nature beckons.
“Remember some of them are families and I believe those tents have produced so many, babies” Ayabo said with laughter.
The moment visitors drive into the camp, the women surge in their numbers and cluster the vehicle awaiting possible gifts or relief materials. Unfortunately for them, donors and non-governmental organizations have left them to their fate except Medecenes Want Frontieres aka Doctors Without Borders.
The inmates live in a terrible environment, many of them claim that they wake up most times to behold snakes crawling around their tents. Some of the inmates narrates their pathetic stories in the hands of herdsmen and what they are going through in the camp.
To the 61 year old Madam Franca Awuali, who shares the same birthday with Nigeria having been born on the nation’s independence day, life has been so cruel and unjust to her. A victim of herdsmen invasion of Benue communities, the woman said, she had never experienced good side of life since she was born, though she is not regretting to be a Nigerian.
Narrating her experience at Otese Internally Displaced Persons camp, the appearance of the 61 year old woman actually captured the true miserable life she had endured and still living.
“Life has not been good to me since I was born to my parents who were both farmers at Udei in Guma local government area of Benue State, I came to this world the day Nigeria got her independence.
“I had a lofty and beautiful dream though my parents were farmers but I thought I would be able to navigate through life challenges and be successful but this dreams have become fruitless and here I am living in one of the shanties with one of my children and grandchildren at an IDP camp.
Mama Franca said she went into business at her early life combined it with farming activities until she met and got married to her husband ‘during Udoji award’ apparently meant that she got married the time General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s Head of State between 1967 and 1975, increased civil servants’ salaries in 1974, an event that came to be known as Udoji Award.
“I got married at a very tender age and was into farming and buying and selling when I met my husband who was a soldier but my husband left the military and went back to school and later worked at the local government secretariat at Gbamjinba, headquarters of the Guma Local Government just briefly before he died in 2002.
“We had seven children but one of them was killed during the herdsmen invasion of our village in (Mgbande) in 2021, he was 25 years old, the other children have all left to different places and I have not heard from them since except this my daughter (pointed at the daughter) who lives with me in this camp with her kids.
“At the time we fled our home last year because of herdsmen attack, we slept in the bush for five days before we were brought here (Otese camp). It was while in the bush that something bit me in the face and turned my complexion to charcoal like this. I have suffered in life and till now am still suffering.”
Asked to assess the country since independence, the only governments that readily came to her mind were; Obasanjo, Jonathan and Major General Muhammad Buhari administrations.
She said, “Nigeria is not good for me at all, I have passed through tribulations in life occasioned by maladministration of successive leaders but to say the truth, I enjoyed small during Obasanjo and Jonathan administration but the present leader is like living in hell while still on earth.
“Despite all these, I am happy to be a Nigerian”.
It was a similar story for Felicia Hembafan who claimed to be 28 years old, a nursing mother of twins who lived at Tsegba village in the same Guma local government, she came to the camp with her husband in October 2021 after herdsmen attack on their community.
“I came to this camp in October last year with my husband and my twin babies after herdsmen pursued us, they killed several people during the attack of Tsegba village where we lived in Guma LGA.
“My husband has returned to the village to attend to the farm but he is coming back, our village is not safe that is why I always pray for him to return save.
“We have been staying in one of the shanties, it is true the tent is not habitable for human being but there is nothing we can do despite the fact that we always wake up to see snakes in the tent, though, no one has been bitten by snake since we came here.
Also Madam Joy Ternguun, a mother of four and now pregnant for the fifth child said she came to Ortese camp on 4th of April, 2021 following herdsmen attack adding that the attack on their village had turned her to beggar before she could feed.
She said, “In the village, we were doing farm work and life was easy because we had peace and could provide for ourselves. But now, it is suffering, there is no food to eat and we cannot go to the farm. Most times we result into begging by going to the nearby village.
“You can see the tent we sleep in because there is no house and when it rains there are worms that comes out of the ground. They use to enter children through the nose.
The worms also affect adults too. Another problem we always face is that of snakes that always enter our tents.
The camp manager, Ayabo who regretted that donor agencies had neglected the plight of Otese inmates said that the major challenges facing the camp was water supply.
He explained that due to the unhygienic situation in the camp four children died of cholera in the camp in 2021 but appreciated the intervention of Medecenes
Sans Frontieres for not only providing healthcare for the inmates but supplying the camp with water everyday.
“Medecenes Sans Frontieres has been very helpful to us especially in providing water because there is no water here. They have made several efforts to dig borehole but their efforts to dig well proved abortive. They still truck water from Makurdi to here.
“Secondly, in terms of medicine. They visit this camp Monday, Wednesday and Friday and if there is any need for emergency, they still attend to us.
“Sometimes State Emergency and Management Agency comes to give us food to eat but no other NGO has come to give us relief materials.
“Unfortunately, last year by this time, I lost about four children on the basis of Cholera outbreak but since the intervention of Doctors Without Borders, that has not occured again. Today as we are standing here, we have measles but we have not recorded any death,” Ayabo said.
All the inmates interviewed appealed to government to help in restoring peace in there respective communities so as to go back.
Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.
Contact: [email protected]
