Why Relief Materials Don’t Get To Some IDPs – NEMA

The spokesman of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Manzo Ezekiel, has explained the challenges faced by its officials in the distribution of relief materials to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and other victims of insecurity.

Ezekiel told journalists in Abuja on Thursday that NEMA officials are also prone to attacks by terrorists and therefore do not single-handedly embark on humanitarian journeys to affected communities without the collaboration of local stakeholders.

He said this after a staff writer with the PRNigeria, Mukhtar Ya’u Madobi, presented his observations and recommendations from a recent investigative expedition to banditry -ravaged areas of Chonoko in Kebbi state and Kagara in Niger state.

Responding to Madobi’s charge that NEMA needs to do more to ensure that victims of insecurity receive relief materials, Ezekiel said they sometimes hand over the materials to the local authorities which include the state and local government officials whose responsibility it is to ensure that the materials get to the right places.

He further told journalists present at the press conference that NEMA is doing a yeoman’s job in providing relief materials to distressed Nigerians within the scope of the limited resources available to it.

The investigative series being carried out by PRNigeria is in partnership with the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and the MacArthur Foundation