The devastation wrought by Boko Haram, which has left
millions of people in northeast Nigeria on the brink of famine, could
exacerbate Europe’s migration crisis if the world fails to act urgently, the
country’s chief humanitarian coordinator said.
Nearly five million people in the region are desperately
hungry and risk starving to death this year if they do not receive food aid,
according to figures from the United Nations.
This could drive even more Nigerians to flee the country and
attempt the perilous journey to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea, unless the
international community ramps up support and funds, said Ayoade Alakija,
Nigeria’s humanitarian coordinator.
“With so many people facing famine, this is the wrong time
to criticise us and simply say ‘You are the giant of Africa’.
Ayoade Olatunbosun Alakija: warns about imminent famine in
North East Nigeria
“The world could see a mass exodus from a country of 180
million people if support is not given, and fast … if people facing famine fall
into famine,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview in the
Senegalese capital of Dakar.
Alakija heads the AOA Global, an international non-profit
group with high level global contacts on humanitarian intervention.
While the European Union has been strained by the influx of
1.6 million refugees and migrants between 2014 and 2016, a greater number of
people in northeast Nigeria, some 1.8 million, are displaced and unable or
unwilling to go home, Alakija added.
“For Nigeria, this is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis
of large magnitude. We, and the wider world, were largely unprepared for it,”
she said, adding that Nigeria was struggling to respond as it deals with its
first recession in 25 years.
Jihadist group Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency to carve
out an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has killed at least 20,000 people and
forced some two million to flee their homes.
The state’s handling of the situation in northeast Nigeria
has been hit by allegations of officials stealing and selling aid, and having
sex with women in exchange for food.
Alakija said the Borno State Government had taken measures
to improve protection efforts – such as having more female officials in camps
for the displaced – and tackle corruption.
“But you need to put such incidents in the wider context of
widespread suffering and desperation,” she said. “We need to tackle the root
cause of the crisis, not just these symptoms.”
The humanitarian response has also been fraught at times due
to tensions between the state and international aid agencies.
The president’s spokesman in December said aid agencies,
including the United Nations, were exaggerating levels of hunger to get more
funding from donors, while Borno’s state governor in January said many of the
groups were profiting from the crisis.
“This arose from a lack of understanding and the fact that
Nigeria has never faced this kind of situation before … there is no denial of
the scale of the crisis within the country, but rather incredulity around what
has been going on,” Alakija said.
“For the first six years of the insurgency, the previous
government did not adequately acknowledge or respond to it,” she said. “It was
not until (President Muhammadu) Buhari came to power (in 2015) that Nigeria,
and the world, woke up and smelt the coffee.”
With Boko Haram’s insurgency in its eighth year and showing
little sign of ending, many aid agencies are thinking beyond just emergency
aid, and considering how best to foster and improve long-term development and
resilience-building efforts.
“The government is tackling the crisis on several fronts,
not just handing out food parcels,” said Alakija. “We are focusing on
rebuilding entire communities, so that people can go back to their homes, jobs,
and resume their lives as normal. (NAN)
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