FCT Emergency Agency Department solely responsible for IDPs in FCT — AEPB

IDPs
By Tosin Kolade
Abuja, June 21, 2018 (NAN) The Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) says it is the sole responsibility of the FCT Emergency Agency Department to assuage the plight of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the FCT.

Mr Simeon Ajueyitsi, the Head of Department of Environmental Health and Safety, AEPB, told News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Thursday that the board was, however, worried about continuous practice of open defecation at IDPs camps in the FCT.

According to him, the sanitary conditions of the IDPs camps in the FCT were horrible, as the environment is tainted by poor sanitation and open defecation.

“Without deceiving ourselves, the FCT Emergency Management Agency is the sole body responsible for plight of the IDPs in the camps. However, due to the fact that there is no Act of Parliament supporting it, it is now a department but they are the ones in charge.

“I can recall when I represented the AEPB in Kaduna when we were formulating the policy on FCT management, they know what they are supposed to do.

“In fact, the FCT Emergency Agency Department is solely in charge of the management of IDPs camps; we can only collaborate with them.

“All agencies can only collaborate with the FCT Emergency Agency Department, the agency is the one in charge, and it should provide toilets, water and other facilities in the IDPs camps.

“They can only co-opt us to join them, the funding, should come from the FCT Minister’s Office; the FCT Emergency Agency Department is just like the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to the FCT,’’ he added.

Ajueyitsi said that unsanitary environment could spur the outbreak of water-borne diseases and food contamination, stressing the need for the FCT Administration (FCTA) to rise up to the challenge and improve the living conditions of the IDPs.

He, however, said that a report was already being collated to address perceptible areas of interventions in Abuja, adding that the overall goal of the AEPB was to scale up hygiene promotion practices in the FCT.

Ajueyitsi said that the board also had a list of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) needs in all the satellite towns of Abuja, adding, however, that there was a need for improved collaboration between relevant stakeholders to promote hygiene practices in the FCT.

NAN reports that no fewer than 6,000 persons living at Dagban and Wassa IDPs camps in the FCT lack access to toilet facilities. (NAN)
TAK/JPE/OOK
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Edited by Joseph Edeh and Dayo Komolafe