Tag: Konduga

THE scent of faeces clings to the hand that cooks with it. Ya’anar Bukar cooks with animal waste hence she understands why she reeks of dung. She also understands how cow dung ruins a rice meal. “If you do not cover the pot properly, the stench of “shit (excreta)” will mix with the food and replace its aroma. Every spoonful will taste like “shit,” said Bukar.

But that is not the worst that could happen; the stench of excreta never leaves you. “Your children’s breath will smell like ‘shit.’ Even your own breath will smell like ‘shit.’ And you cannot afford to stop breathing. It’s so hard to endure,” said Bukar.

Bukar has learnt to cook with cow dung. Every day, she deserts her tent to hunt for animal waste at the desert edge of Konduga. In the expanse, where Borno winds into the dusty tracts of infamous Sambisa, Bukar scavenges for cow dung, foraging the area like a garden of earthly delights.

You would know that cow dung is expensive just by observing Bukar. On a sunny afternoon in April, the 32-year-old foraged for excreta determinedly. Poorly shod and exhausted, the Internally Displaced Person (IDP) from Konduga IDP camp, laid her wiry hands on a sack, patting the faeces straining through her ragged polythene bag, like invaluable gemstones. According to her, she and fellow IDPs were forced to improvise and use cow dung as cooking fuel due to the scarcity of firewood.

“At the camp,” disclosed Bukar, “the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), only provides us with food. They do not give us firewood,” she said.

“I have no money to buy firewood. So, I come here to fetch this cow shit (cow dung) to use as firewood. I will use it to cook for myself and my four children. If I go to the bush to fetch wood, I will be exposed to danger because Boko Haram comes to kidnap people,” she said.

Bukar stays at the new makeshift IDP camp in Konduga. “Initially we were camped in a concrete structure but when the building got burnt, they had to move us to this new place where we reside,” she said.

Cooking with cow dung requires special skill. Bukar has to ensure that her pot of food is well covered, with the lid firmly placed within its groove. She however, insisted that the smell of faeces hardly destroys her meals. “We usually cover the pot when cooking so that the food does not smell of excreta. But when it smells, we eat it like that,” said Bukar.

The 32-year-old craves government intervention before her plight and the lives of other IDPs worsen. “I want the government to assist us because even the food given to us in the camp is not enough. They just give us rice without cooking oil, seasoning or firewood. Sometimes, we have to sell part of our foodstuff to buy condiment before we cook,” revealed Bukar.

Wisps of smoke rise from her hearth, to spiral in the air and Bukar’s nostrils. While she occasionally holds her breath to inhale the fumes in measured gasps, Bukar’s four kids inhaled without measure or caution. They seem used to the fumes and the stink of cow dung.

In the absence of dung, Bukar would toss in films of straw and shards of  broken plastic to ignite fire in her hearth but the availability of cow dung required that she saved her straws and plastics for a rainy day.

Bukar’s stove, like several of her neighbours,’ is a rudimentary three-stone ftriangle of elevated points to support a pot. Bukar feeds roughly chopped faeces into the stove to ignite the flames that cooks the moistened rice flour her hand shapes into massa, rice cakes.

With this simple act, Bukar shares a connection with over one-third of the world’s population, that is, the three billion people who depend on solid biomass fuels including wood, animal dung, agricultural waste and charcoal for their cooking needs.

In Konduga, a region grappling with thousands of IDPs households, still rely on such fuel for their primary cooking energy source.

Globally, the percentage of households that use biomass has slowly and steadily decreased over the past three decades. But due to impoverishment, hunger and other constraints imposed on IDPs in the area, the number of people using solid fuels is not declining.

“This is not going away,” said Kirk Smith, an environmental-health scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied the health implications of such cooking stoves for 30 years.

 

The dangers of cooking with cow dung

“There are harmful consequences in burning cow dung as cooking fuel. By using this as fuel, people from rural areas are prone to suffer from a lot of health problems. Toxic dung contain high levels of dangerous gases. The IDPs should be discouraged from packing it and burning it as cooking fuel,” said Bidemi Okojie, a medical doctor.

It is well documented that animal dung used as fuel produces particles in the smoke that can be irritants to the lungs and eyes. “That sounds self-evident, but I’m not just talking about coughing and runny eyes. Long-term exposure to airborne particulate matter has been associated with increased rates of cataracts and other eye problems, acute respiratory infections, including tuberculosis (The tuberculosis does not come from burning dung, but rather irritated lungs are more susceptible to infection), chronic obstructive lung disease and cancer.

There is greater danger in cooking with cow dung. Dung from cows that feed on pesticide-contaminated rice straw is even more toxic, according to health experts. When the dung cakes are burnt, hazardous gases are released and women sitting next to the hearth inhale these gases. Under such circumstances, the chances of women being affected with respiration-related ailments are high, health experts warn.

Recent studies show that by inhaling these, people suffer from diseases.

For instance, a study conducted by Jadavpur University, India, shows that villagers in the Ganga, Meghana and Brahmaputra plains were exposed to smoke containing high levels of hazardous gases every day. The region’s groundwater is contaminated and this water is used by farmers to grow paddy. Cattle feed on polluted rice fields and the dung is likely to contain arsenic.

When people burn cow dung, over 25 per cent of the arsenic in fumes could be absorbed by the respiratory tract and this leads to lung cancer and other diseases, according to the study.

Besides the perils of cooking with cow dung, the women and girls that do the cooking are also tasked with collecting the heavy loads of firewood or other improvised materials. They also  travel to remote locations to find fuel, making them vulnerable to abduction by the rampaging hordes of Boko Haram..

When cow dung is burnt, dangerous gases are released, which is then inhaled by people. It is sad to note the victims are mostly women who have no means of acquiring decent living standards.

 

‘Hunger drives us to eat rice with stones’

In the same rice field that Bukar scavenges for cow dung, Aisha Musa, 82, sifts through stones and sand silt for rice, everyday. The elderly IDP traveled the tedious distance between the Konduga IDP camp and the rice field where the township’s subsistence farmers troop to process their rice harvests. Crouched amid the field, Musa studiously searched for grain amid a sea of sand and rice pods.

“We come here, where most rice farmers come to process local rice to pick the remaining and cook for our children. Sometimes we hardly get a cup of rice and sometimes we pick a lot. Because there is a lot of stones, we usually turn the sand and pods continuously, so that rice can come up,” she said.

Like Musa, Yagarna Mikarti, a teenager, visits the field to get rice “to feed herself and her children.” But unlike Musa, Mikarti exhibits little patience in her search for rice. She doesn’t care if she scoops too much sand and filth with tiny portions of the edible grain.

Both women disclosed that they were scavenging on the rice field because they had exhausted the food they received in the camp.

“Our food has finished in the camp. That is why we have to come down here and get something  to eat. The people giving us food will not give us until a specific day. Most times, we are forced to cook pods with the rice. This si because the rice is never enough. It’s always too meagre for one person’s mouth let alone an entire family. Sand gets in with the pods and rice. It breaks your teeth if you are not careful. But we take solace in the fact that, we will always get good grains to eat even if it does not last long,” said Mikarti.

 

A very grim picture

The plight of northern IDPs worsen despite government and non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs) efforts to alleviate their sufferings. The Nation’s visit to Konduga, Muna, Muna Dalti, Dalori and other parts of Maiduguri revealed widespread inconsistencies in relief efforts.

Displaced persons complain of lack condiments to cook the food they receive from SEMA and other NGOs. But of greatest worry to them is the unavailability of firewood to cook their meals.

Due to the scarcity of wood, many of them have devised a means of getting by and avoiding starvation. “I divide the food they give me into three parts. I sell one part of it to raise money for firewood and another part to raise money for cooking condiments. Me and my children make do with the remainder of the food. It is never enough as we often finish it in one week. As a result, we have to go out and beg for food or money to buy food. I do not like what I am doing but if I do not take such measure, me and my six children would starve,” revealed Talaita Ba’ kana. The 26-year-old sells part of her food ration at rates very much below the actual value, in order to raise money to purchase firewood and cooking condiments.

Shetina Muhammadu, 34, roams Maiduguri with her five children. Together, they loiter around Damboa road seeking alms from passersby and left-over food from food canteens. “Since I lost my husband and eldest son to Boko Haram, life has become harder for me and my surviving children. We have been to Dalori IDP camp but we had to leave because the camp officials said we had to wait for one month before they accept us. We were just sitting there.  We had to beg food from fellow refugees who were not always willing to give. From the alms we receive, I set out money to buy firewood and condiments,” she said.

The plight of IDPs in Borno certainly presents a serious challenge to the government and NGOs. Despite relief efforts and donations by the Federal Government, the Borno State government, local and international NGOs, thousands of IDPs still live in dire situation.

“The NGOs and the government have got it all wrong. Their approach might be borne of good intent but their manner of approach, project monitoring and evaluation is all wrong,” said Grema Terab, former Chairman of SEMA in Borno State.

Terab argued that it is never enough to donate food and relief materials to IDPs. “The needs of the IDPs are varied. It has become clear that food alone cannot solve their problems. Many of them need provisions. They need condiments to prepare the rice and other meals that they are given. The local and international NGOs should quit dumping food in the camps thinking they have done IDPs the ultimate favour.

“Women and girls at puberty need sanitary towels. Many of them are forced to use rags during menstruation. They have other needs too besides food and inability to get those personal needs force many of them to offer sex to their care givers and security operatives in the camps. Many are forced to do so because they have no other choice. The government and NGOs should see to these other needs,” said Terab.

 

“Over N20 million spent on firewood”

The Commissioner of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Usman Zannah, in a recent address to council chairmen in Maiduguri, urged them to identify the pressing needs of their communities and approach the government for support where appropriate. He made the statement while urging council chairmen to relocate IDPs from the resettlement camps to their liberated communities along with their Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) to ensure security and adequate food supplies for returning residents.

He described recent protests of IDPs over poor feeding, as a result of inadequate supply of food items from National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) in the preceding months to the crisis.

He said the government “can render all assistance, including the supply and distribution of food items on family or household basis.”

Zannah however noted that the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs spent over N20 million on the procurement of firewood by SEMA towards the last quarter of last year.

The firewood procured probably never got round. Ask Bukar, Ba’ akana and their fellow IDPs.

 

Firewood dealers’ grief

Muhammadu Maidubu, the Chairman of The Borno State Firewood Dealers Association told The Nation that the state government was yet to pay some members of the union its outstanding N30 million for firewood it supplied to the IDPs’ camps since April 2016. Consequently, the association has suspended delivery of firewood to camps in the state. This is because members of the union are yet to received their outstanding fees.

“Initially I did not want to say anything on this issue because of our in-house politics. Some of our members refused to recognise my effort as the third chairman to help them get their money that was opening since last year April. Of course, you don’t expect any of us to supply firewood to the IDPs because even the one we supplied, we are yet to be paid.

“We don’t know the reason but honestly it is frustrating as some of our members were exposed to an unnecessary and excruciating hardship. We normally buy firewood from other dealers in Damboa, Damaturu and Benaishaik and then transport it down to Maiduguri to sell to our customers.

“We buy N50,000 per trip of by a pickup truck. This does not include the cost of transportation. It will cost each driver about N70,000 on each trip,” said Maidubu.

 

Our relief efforts —Gov Shettima

Contrary to insinuations that the Borno State government has received billions of cash donations in local and foreign currencies for the care and support of IDPs,  the state governor, Kashim Shettima, revealed that only a total of N345million was received as cash donations from May 2011 when he inherited the Boko Haram crisis.

Shettima made the disclosure while responding to questions from journalists in Maiduguri. The journalists sought his response on the allegations on the social media and a section of the main stream media that the state government had received billions of naira in cash donations as support to cater for IDPs whereas the donations were diverted by government officials with food supplies not provided for the IDPs.

“You see, contrary to wild assumptions that the Borno State Government has received billions of cash donations in local and foreign currencies for the management of IDPs, a lot of Nigerians may be shocked to know that a total of N345million is the overall amount received as cash donation by our administration from May, 2011 to date.

“Here is the list of cash donations we received from all sources whatsoever for the support of IDPS, in Borno State and this figure is from 2011 when I took over, to this moment:   The federal government under Jonathan gave us N200million in four years; Lagos State Government, N50million in October, 2015; Edo State Government, N25million in 2013; Kano State, N20million in 2013 and Adamawa State, N20 million in 2013.

“Other are Ekiti State, N10 million in 2013; Osun State, N10 million in 2013; Kaduna State, N5 million and Unity Bank, N5 million. There is one woman who prefers her name not to be mentioned, she donated N100,000 in cash bringing total cash received to three hundred and forty five million, one hundred thousand naira.”

So, in effect, N345million is the total cash donation received by the Borno State Government from 2011 to date meant for support of IDPs and we were spending N600 million every month to cater for IDPs throughout the Jonathan era.”

All other interventions have been in kind, through donation of food items or medical supplies and so on, he said.

The governor explained that international partners operate in such a way that they have technical partners that implement their interventions.

“We have received tremendous support from some part of the international community but no foreign country or any international partner within or outside the UN and major world donors gave any cash to our administration from 2011 to date for the purpose of IDPs but rather all donations come in materials like medical supplies, technical support and food items, most of which are directly distributed by the international partners themselves to reach IDPs in different parts of Borno State.”

He noted that “the World Food Programme (WFP) also makes intervention of food and recently they are doing conditional cash transfers and that also is handled by officials of the WFP. If there is one organisation that has given us any cash donation outside the N345 million for IDPS, it was the Dangote Foundation which gave Borno N400 million but that wasn’t for IDPs, it was an economic empowerment programme for women which the Dangote Group launched in different States including Lagos,Kano, Jigawa, Kogi, Adamawa and Yobe States in which N10,000 each was given to about three or four hundred thousand women across these states I mentioned. The N2billion Dangote announced in support of Borno two months ago, we requested that he doesn’t give us cash but building materials worth the amount.”

According to Shettima, IDPs consume about 1,800 bags of rice daily. “In Borno today, about 1,800 bags of 50 kilograms of rice which constitutes three trailers of 600 bags each, is required daily to cater for internally displaced persons across the state and this does not include ingredients like tomatoes, vegetable oil, beans to balance carbohydrate, onions, salt and other elements. For our regular camps, a total of 984 bags of rice are consumed daily based on a Data Tracking Matrix of the International Organisation on Migration working with the National Emergency Management Agency and the Borno State Emergency Management Agency.

“This figure of 978 bags is for the camps in Maiduguri and Jere, Dikwa, Bama and Damboa. For Maiduguri and Jere, 787 bags of rice are consumed daily for the 152,000 displaced persons in 17 camps  and two relief points at Madinatu and Muna Garrage where distribution of food items are made to IDPs living outside camps in Maiduguri. For Dikwa which has 75,000 displaced persons, 101 bags are required  daily.

“Bama requires 50 bags daily for 32,000 displaced persons while Damboa requires 40 bags daily. These are as per the Data Tracking Mtarix of the International Organization on Migration. There are areas where interventions are made on bi-weekly basis. In Gwoza for instance, two trucks totaling 1,200 bags of rice are conveyed every two weeks which comes down to 85 bags daily. In Banki, the same 1,200 bags in two trucks are conveyed every two weeks.”

“At Ngala where we have 7,000 persons in camps and 60,000 living around communities with no source of food, a minimum of 140 bags of 50 kilograms of rice is consumed daily. In Monguno which has 48,000 IDPS from both Monguno and Marte, 60 bags are required daily; in Baga and Kroskawa, 58 bags are required daily for 33,000 IDP’s. In Sabon-Gari, 21,000 IDP’s require 40 bags daily while Nganzai has the least which is 1,300 displaced persons. Beside population, consumption is also dependent on ratio of women and children who consume less than men,” he said.

 

Why hunger persists in IDPs’ camps…

But even the food being distributed is never enough, stressed IDPs. Many of them alleged that the rice given to them is in smaller portions than the actual sizes of the bagged grain. They accused camp officials of sharp practices including the diversion of camp food to a base where they are rebagged into smaller sizes.

They also accused camp officials of stealing their food and selling them for profit in the market.

Muhammadu Salisu, 78, a resident of the Dalori IDPs camp, one of the largest in Borno State, accused camp officials of stealing their food items from the stores.

This is one of the reasons IDPs on the camp staged a protest recently. “We are tired of being persistently starved and shortchanged. The food they give is never enough. That is after they have stolen the bulk of it,” said Aishatu Tagana. Tagana recently arrived on the camp with her seven kids from Bama.

Camp officials within and around Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, have always denied the allegations claiming they had never been involved in such practices. “These people will say anything for attention. Nothing you give them is ever enough,” said a camp official and relief worker in Maiduguri.

No doubt it’s the IDPs word against theirs. It will be recalled that few months ago, when First Lady of Borno, Nana Shettima, visited some of the camps to monitor the special feeding system for minors which was introduced when a Senate committee led by Senator Oluremi Tinubu visited the camps, IDPs in Dalori camp vented their grievances.

They said the food being dished out was grossly insufficient. They accused camp officials of stealing food from the stores and selling it in the market. Earlier in August, there was a protest by displaced persons after which the Borno State government banned central cooking of meals for the displaced persons.

The government introduced household feeding system which allows the displaced persons to cook their own food, after receiving uncooked portions from camp officials.

Governor Shettima also ordered the investigation and possible prosecution of camp officials accused of stealing from the camps’ food store.

It will be recalled that Governor Shettima recently accused some NGOs over alleged misappropriations of about $334 million (N133.6 billion) on “humanitarian interventions and assistance” for Boko Haram victims in the state and north-east sub-region of the country.

Even though Shettima did not disclose the names of affected NGOs, he said that since the commencement of Boko Haram crisis, the situation has been misrepresented and exploited by humanitarian workers.

Shettima made the allegations during an official visit of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), Deputy Regional Director for West and East Africa, Beatrice Mutali, at the Government House in Maiduguri. He said that the people of Borno State are the ones that suffered much in the hands of Boko Haram for several years, noting that they do not deserve to be sidelined or cheated by some desperate money seekers under the auspices of local and international humanitarian assistance for IIDPs.

Few months earlier, Isabelle Mouniaman, head of Médecins Sans Frontières operations in Nigeria, said MSF has been raising the alarm in northern Nigeria for two years and UN organisations have failed to respond. She also accused the federal government of deliberate negligence and attempt to conceal the scale of the crisis.

“We’ve been calling on the UN and their response has been ‘Yes, we’re doing this and that’… But you cannot just be satisfied to say you built X number of latrines, delivered X bags of food when people are dying. It’s not enough,” Mouniaman said.

 

When food is not enough

International aid agencies have focused on Maiduguri’s overstretched camps, but more than 80 per cent of displaced people in the city, around two million people, are living among the community, the vast majority without access to food aid or medical support.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has categorised 4.4 million people in the Lake Chad region as “severely food insecure” – meaning they are in need of urgent food aid.

Toby Lanzer, UN assistant secretary general and OCHA’s regional humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, said: “This is about as bad as it gets. There’s only one step worse and I’ve not come across that situation in 20 years of doing this work and that’s a famine. We have to step in and quickly or we are going to have hundreds of thousands at risk of dying in the north-east of Nigeria.”

Lanzer said UN agencies have not had the resources necessary to tackle the crisis and has called on international donors to prevent a greater catastrophe. Of the $279m (£210m) required, only $75m has so far been secured.

But resolving Borno IDPs’ problems requires more than food and cash donations.

“The most challenging aspect of all is the management, upkeep and welfare of the IDPs scattered across the length and breadth of Nigeria and other neighbouring countries such as their feeding, shelter, sanitation, medication, portable drinking water, non-food items such as mattresses, blankets, mosquito nets, clothing, buckets, cooking and eating utensils and so on.”

Only about 100,000 IDPs live in various government camps which often get attention by government agencies such as NEMA, SEMA and other international donor agencies as well as other well-meaning individuals and organisations.

“Despite the involvement of these agencies, the few people that live in the camps are still dying of hunger, malnutrition and diseases. That shows something is wrong somewhere despite all the resources that have been earmarked towards their upkeep, well-being and welfare by all the agencies. Right now things are not normal in all of the camps and where the IDPs are taking refuge in the host community,” said Terab.

The former SEMA chairman highlighted another critical aspect as the resettlement of the IDPs in their various localities which has already become an issue between the government and the IDPs. “One point of contention is that the IDPs feel they should be involved in whatever the government is planning on their behalf and if they are not careful, the government will carelessly and recklessly allow public officers to exploit the situation of the IDPs and loot public funds without getting the required result. This creates a serious rift between the government and the masses. The government in the past has spent hundreds of millions of Naira through various committees for the reconstruction of destroyed towns, communities and villages but has not yielded any positive result,” he said.

Halima Danjuma, an aid worker in Borno, suggested that the federal and state governments make greater efforts to resettle IDPs in their communities and more conducive environments. The Nation’s visit across state-run/NGO-run IDPs camps revealed grisly conditions of displaced persons. The IDPs in most instances are sheltered in makeshift tents constructed with rubber sheets.

“When it is hot, it becomes extremely hot inside the tents. We would appreciate it if the government can provide us better shelter. We live in extreme conditions during hot and cold weather inside these rubber tents. When it rains, you will pity us,” said Aliyu Maijiri, an IDP in Konduga IDP camp.

Stakeholders admit that the government and NGOs could do better in providing decent shelter for IDPs. “We should stop this idea of unofficial IDPs settlements. Tagging them as unofficial centres justify the government and NGOs neglect of IDPs dwelling in areas and conditions unfit for humans,” said Muhammed Kabir, a relief worker.

Indeed, the fate of IDPs in so-called ‘unofficial IDPs settlements’ present a sorry case: they are left to their devices with neither food, decent shelter and security. “This explains why they are more prone to suicide bomb attacks,” said Ms. Tundra Gift, an NGO volunteer and teacher in Maiduguri.

Gift referenced the incessant bombing in Muna bombing as a direct consequence of stakeholders’ neglect of unregistered IDPs living outside the bracket of those the government and NGOs cater to. The March 22 bombing of the ‘unofficial’ IDPs camp in Muna for instance, evokes tragic memories: no sooner did the bomber strike than the settlement blew to bits, burning residents and rundown structures.

Just seven of the dwellings were built with NGO-donated rubber sheets. The rest were constructed with dried leaves and sticks; this made it easier for the fire to spread as soon as the bomb detonated.

On March 22, seven people were killed including the three suicide bombers while 18 IDPs were severely injured. But no other statistic speaks with more forlorn eloquence than the tragic case of Zahrah Musa, the 90-year-old who rushed back to her tent minutes after the bomb attack. Although her tent was no longer there, Musa feverishly sought her pot of potatoes – valued at N300, she put it on fire in bid to have an early breakfast.

Thus while other IDPs kept a comfortable distance from the scene of the attack, Musa rushed back to salvage her breakfast. She rummaged through her burnt pot, examining her charred potatoes with hands that seemed gnarled and sinewy from wrestling with the sleight of years and the trials of life as an IDP in Muna township.

Musa had no children or grandchildren to care about. She had no husband to fret over. The 90-year-old ignored her bleeding leg to salvage N300 worth of potatoes.

But a greater tragedy subsists in the lives of Ba’akana, Bukar and other IDPs cooking with cow dung.