By Deborah Onyofufeke, Abuja

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, yesterday revealed that over 16 million Nigerians are currently affected by humanitarian crises caused either by man-made occurrences or natural disasters.

Edu explained that some of this crisis emanated from security issues, pockets of unrest in different areas of the country, flooding which is being experienced in some states at the moment, and the opening of the Lagdo dam in Cameroon.

*Discloses 46,000 Cameroon refugees already in Cross River, Taraba, Benue

She added that the unrest in neighbouring countries like Cameroon has further compounded the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria as over 46,000 refugees are coming into Nigeria from southern Cameroon.

As such, she said there are a whole lot of refugees around the border, with over 36,000 in Cross River and others in Taraba and Benue.

The minister said this during a courtesy visit from the Country Director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr Jeremie Zoungrana, and Deputy Director of Health, Population, and Nutrition, Carolin Jehu-Appiah, in Abuja.

She added that in addition to the Cameroonian refugees, others are coming into the country from Niger as a result of the crisis there.

“We’re dealing with order crises in Niger having people come into Sokoto, Kano, Katsina, and all of that. This is in addition to Nigerians that are refugees in this country and the migrants that were trying to go through the Niger and Libya and got stuck around the border. So it’s a whole lot as it concerns the humanitarian crises and what we need to deal with as a Ministry”.

She solicited the support of the foundation in tackling the crisis.

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Edu said, “We would need lots of financial help in terms of supporting programmes, supporting processes, and helping with implementation.”

She disclosed that an innovation termed the Presidential Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund would be structured to help achieve the feat of lifting millions of Nigerians out of poverty and other humanitarian crises.

She added, “One of the innovations we want to put on board, that’s the Presidential Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund. Now, we need to be able to go full-blown into a robust resource mobilisation move that can help us pull together funding into one basket that will be used to address both the humanitarian crises and the poverty alleviation programmes and projects without necessarily going through the bureaucratic bottlenecks of government.

“So, every other day, we have humanitarian issues arising and sometimes we do not respond adequately. We do not prevent them. We are unable to even carry this out to the end for several constraints. Sometimes it might not even be that the government is not willing to put in the money, but the process to get the money because the money was not budgeted for in the last budget.

“So, you have to go to National Assembly and beg over 300 and something people to agree that this is a crisis and you need to intervene which will take probably a month, and then thereafter, you move from there to the Ministry of Finance and FEC and before you say Jackie Robinson, an issue which you probably should be responding in hours to save lives, in two months, you’re yet to take any concrete action because of the constraints.

“So, we must be innovative enough to find a way around this so that there does not impede implementation. And that’s why we’re coming up with the Trust Fund. Now it’s a Trust Fund that Nigeria would put a skin in the game so we’ll put our monies into the Trust Fund so from the budgetary allocation, from special intervention funds Nigeria will be putting into this basket.

“Now beyond this, we are looking at donor agencies and development partners coming into this space. We’re also looking at harnessing the private sector to come into the space and support us,” Edu said.

Edu further said, “So, if there’s a gap in security, they will end up in humanitarian crisis, end up in poverty. If there’s an education gap, they end up in some form of multi-dimensional poverty. If there’s a gap in healthcare, they end up here. So, it’s like we are at the end, the receiving tray for failure in any other sector. If there’s a problem with the economy, they end up in this pool of poor.”