Refugees reject Kaduna govt’s N15,000 cash assistance

Persons displaced as a result of last April’s post-election violence in Kaduna State and currently living in refugee camps have appealed to the state government to increase the N15,000 cash assistance being offered them to resettle.

The displaced persons said that the cash assistance was “too little and paltry” to enable each household secure another accommodation.

They, therefore, said that the state government should consider raising the amount to a realistic and reasonable level.

A representative of the refugees from Marraban Rido, Malam Muhammadu, said at the Mando Refugee Camp on Friday that it would not be fair for a family with children to be given N15,000 as assistance to secure another accommodation because getting a house for that amount was not realistic.

Muhammadu argued that many of them from rural Kaduna would not be able to return to their former places of abode, which were destroyed during the violence because of the fear of fresh attacks on them.

But the chairman of the committee set up by the state government to find immediate succour for the victims of the crisis in the state, Alhaji Saidu Adamu, assured the victims that the government would do something about their complaint.

Adamu said that the state government had already purchased foodstuff and building materials with which to assist the displaced persons across the state.

He, however, blamed some individuals and NGOs, who he accused of allegedly brainwashing and instigating the displaced persons against the state government.