Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum has revealed that ghost households exist in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in the state, who stay at the camps during the day when food items are shared only to return to their homes at night.
The Governor, who noted that “650 ghost households” was discovered when he visited an IDP camp located at Mohammed Goni College of Islamic Legal Studies in Maiduguri, the state capital, said he was determined to put a stop to rampant cases of dubious residents pretending to be displaced.
A statement posted on Zulum’s Facebook page said in part: “Around midnight on Sunday, Borno Governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum showed up at Mohammed Goni College of Islamic Legal Studies in Maiduguri, where internally displaced persons from Abadam local government area of northern Borno were being camped.
“Zulum immediately sealed entrance and supervise a headcount to identify actual IDPs, in order to put a stop to rampant cases of dubious residents pretending to be displaced, who spend day times at IDP camps to share food meant for IDPs, and towards the night, they return to their homes to sleep, with some of them benefiting from other means through which the state distributes food to vulnerable non IDPs in communities.
“Governor Zulum’s mission, which ended past 1am, discovered that out of 1,000 households in the records of humanitarian officials, 650 households were ghosts.”