Two Senators are currently visiting Taraba state
to access the extent of damage caused by
insurgency; including the current situation of
Internally Displaced Persons. The Senators are
part of an 8-man adhoc Committee on North East
Development.

They are Senator Emmanuel Bwacha of Southern
Taraba Senatorial district and Senator Yahaya
Gaya from Kano South Senatorial district, who
was also a former governor of Kano state.
The Senators met with the Executive Governor of
Taraba state, Gov. Darius Ishaku yesterday
Monday 14th November 2016, to inform him of
their mission. Today, they visited two IDP camps
in Gassol Local Government Area of Taraba state.
The Mutum Biyu camp and the Sabon gida camp.

The team’s delegation to Gassol included Hon.
Anthony Jellason, the Secretary to the State
government, the Executive Secretary of SEMA,
and some top government officials.
They first stopped over at the Mutum Biyu camp
where they were received by the local
Government Chairman, Hon. Yahuza Yaú and
some of the people of the Community. Sen.
Bwacha specifically explained how the
Committee will be funded by 3% of the state
government’s revenue, together with other
sources of funds, to finance their resettlement
and empowerment.

Sen. Bwacha also encouraged the people to keep
religious differences aside and live together in
Peace, stressing that those who steal
government money normally don’t bring religion
into it; but use religion and ethnicity to cause
divisions, which is most unacceptable.
Sen. Gaya who elaborated on their mission,
encouraged them that their suffering will soon
be over. He further went on to stress Bwacha’s
popularity in the upper house, and how he never
shows religious sentiments when dealing with
issues.

The head of the IDP camp, Mallam Rayyanu
Umar, responded by thanking the delegation for
visiting them and giving them cash gifts; after
enumerating the problems the IDPs are passing
through to include poor living conditions, high
incidence of snakes, scorpions and mosquitos,
lack of education, water etc.
The Sabon gida camp also had hundreds of IDPs,
most of which came from their farms, since
facilities at the church camp cannot
accommodate them. They also listed shortage of
food, seizure of some of their farmlands by local
chiefs, lack of education for their kids and poor
living conditions as problems that needed urgent
attention.