Eight years after Bazhigla Haruna left Borno State due to terrorist's attacks to seek refuge in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp in Edo State, he is now a 300-level student of Medicine and Surgery at Edo State University. Haruna was able to achieve the feat due to the support he got from the manager of the IDP camp, Home for the Needy Foundation. Many like Haruna after being displaced due to terrorists’ activities often look for protection, and succor. While some ended up in homes of family members or IDP camps, others roamed the streets of major cities, taking up menial jobs.
Eight years after Bazhigla Haruna left Borno State due to terrorist's attacks to seek refuge in an Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Edo State, he is now a 300-level student of Medicine and Surgery at Edo State University. Haruna was able to achieve the feat due to the support he got from the manager of the IDP camp, Home for the Needy Foundation.The Insurgency crisis in Nigeria has led to the displacement of many.
One of the supervisors at the camp, Pastor Evelyn Omigie, said adequately meeting the needs of the residents in the camp and fulfilling its mission has not been an easy task. This is why pupils live in crowded hostels just as they learn without some basic study materials, including not having adequate furniture and teachers in its school, International Christian Schools, where primary and secondary education is provided.
Haruna, who completed his primary education at Chinene Primary School, Chinene Community, Gwoza Local Council, but was forced to abandon his Junior Secondary School education at Universal Basic Education School, Chikide, Gwoza Local Council, said that after the displacement, he had given up on returning to school, considering his school was attacked and shut thereafter.
“But I was encouraged to push on. In SSS 3, I wrote the exams again and passed all my papers, but I was offered a course different from what I applied for. In all, I wrote JAMB four times because of my desire to study Medicine and Surgery.” The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect stated that more than 35,000 people have been killed in northern Nigeria since 2009 when Boko Haram launched its insurgency aimed at overthrowing Nigeria’s secular government and establishing an Islamic state.
Haruna is not the only one that has been positively touched after passing through the IDP camp of the Home for the Needy. Sharing her experience too, Blessing Moses, said that her family ran from Michika, where she completed her secondary school education, to Mubi, but had to flee to Yola, when Boko Haram wrote a letter announcing it plans to attack Mubi.
“My initial plan was to study nursing, but after completing the NEC programme and mooted the idea of still studying for a degree in Nursing, Pastor Solomon encouraged me to push ahead. So, I wrote JAMB and got admitted into Edo State University. I have written my professional examination, passed, and I am now a registered nurse.
With peace returning to some communities in insurgency-ravaged areas, some of the IDP camps were closed. For instance, from May 2021 to August 2022, Borno State government closed eight camps in the state capital, Maiduguri. But the Hope for the Needy Foundation is not planning to close its camp yet, because it still has a number of IDPs to cater for educationally, who are receiving primary and secondary education.
Yakubu Haruna, 18, who completed his secondary school education in the camp, recently, has been admitted to student Law at Edo State University. On the camp are dormitories for male, female, a healthcare centre, a primary and secondary school, sport centre, a church auditorium, among other facilities.
“With counselling, as well as showing them real love, through caring, the word of God, and prayers, they were rehabilitated. Presently, between 90 to 95 per cent have come out of their traumatic experiences. We encouraged them to go back to school. Most of them could not speak English when they arrived, but gradually they began to speak English and so you will find some of them studying English in the university. We told them that they could make it by reading, without malpractice.
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