By Our Reporter
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has organised a 2-day Inception/Orientation Training for Task Teams of the 2025 NHRC/UNHCR Project on Protection of Forcibly Displaced Persons (FDPS) for the South South zone.
NHRC’s Executive Secretary, Tony Ojukwu, who spoke in Calabar during the opening ceremony of the workshop, Tuesday, said the training was to empower participants on the use of information/data collection and advocacy programmes for the protection of forcibly displaced persons (FDPS) and refugees in the country.
Ojukwu, who was represented by his Special Assistant/Head, Monitoring Department of the Commission, Okay Benedict Agu, said the project was for “a three-year duration aimed at enhancing the promotion and protection of human rights of IDPs, Asylum-seekers, Refugees and Returnees in Nigeria.”
He disclosed that the project, implemented in 11 States of Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara, Cross Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Benue, was being supported by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees.
According to him, the project “will adopt a multifaceted intervention, encompassing Human Rights-Based approach to research, information/data collection, analysis and reporting, advocacy, capacity building, and generally, improved access to human rights promotion and protection in Nigeria.”
The Executive Secretary further described the protection of forcibly displaced persons and refugees as respecting the rights of such individuals “in accordance with the letter and spirit of relevant bodies of laws, namely national human rights laws, international human rights laws and refugees’ laws.”
While disclosing that there were about 39,000 Cameroonian refugees, spread across Taraba, Benue, Cross River and Akwa Ibom states of Nigeria, he charged participants to note that “data collection, under this project, must be guided by Human Rights-Based Approach, emphasizing the importance of the principles of human rights monitoring.”
In an interview, the Coordinator of the Commission in Cross River State, Remi Ajuga, charged Nigerians from all walks of life to be their brothers’ keepers in terms of joining hands with governments at all levels and relevant bodies in protecting and providing for the needs of the FDPS.
Ajuga said the Commission was putting its best legs forward in terms of protecting and enhancing the condition of living of thousands of Cameroon refugees in the State, and commended both the State and the Federal governments for the taking the plight of the FIDPs and refugees as top priority.
