Compared to what the international community had expended on humanitarian services, the Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCNI) yesterday lamented that the N45 billion budgeted by the federal government to feed over 2 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the region was grossly inadequate.

According to Ceoafrica, It said N108 billion was required to effectively and efficiently intervene and feed IDPs in camps and liberated communities of the affected states in the Northeast region of the country.

This was disclosed in Maiduguri yesterday by Senator Ali Ndume who led members of the committee to the deputy governor of Borno State, Usman Durkwa to address issues of IDPs’ feeding and resettlement.

Ndume noted that the committee also used the opportunity to ask the Borno State government to join in them in pleading with the leadership of the National Assembly to increase the budget set aside for intervention in the North East from N45 billion to N108 billion.

He said, “the Nigerian government last year budgeted only N12 billion, while this year, in the 2017 budget, the federal government also budgeted a paltry sum of N45 billion. The budgetary allocation to intervene and feed IDPs in the Northeast was grossly inadequate.

“The contributions of the international community to humanitarian crisis in the North East are more than that of the government. UN-OCHA has budgeted $1.05 billion (N300 billion) for 2017. In December last year, $449 million was also contributed by the international community.

“That also represents an equivalent of N130 billion, compared to the N45 billion budgeted by federal government this year to feed the displaced persons in the Northeast”.

He called on federal and state governments to, at least, take the lead or match what the international community is doing to the “traumatized and displaced” persons in the region.

He however noted that there was light at the end of the tunnel, as President Muhammadu Buhari is committed to addressing the challenges of feeding and resettling IDPs in the North East.