The high-handedness which the Cameroonian government is meting out to its citizens has begun to yield adverse results in the polity. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, says it has registered 12,100 Cameroonian refugees flocking into Nigeria’s Benue and Cross River states. Antonio Canhandula, UNHCR Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, gave this figure during a news conference last Tuesday in Abuja. He said that 4,000 of the Cameroonians were registered in Benue state while 8,100 others were registered in Cross River state.
According to the UN official, there are Cameroonian refugees in other parts of Nigeria, but majority of them are in Benue and Cross River states, a situation that needs urgent intervention by government and humanitarian partners. The UNHCR likes to talk about figures that have been verified, and the people who have been registered.
Mr. Canhandula continued, “So far in Cross River State, we have registered 8,100 refugees; certainly, there are more and that is why the team is still on ground. So, we can’t state how many more. But what we can state is that they are still coming, and they are coming daily. In Benue state, we have a total of 4,000 refugees; 2,310 in Abande and 1,690 in Abasse; these are figures that we can vouch for.”
He further noted that the 40,000 figure that was earlier stated was for contingency plan and not the actual figure of registered Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria. “We have worked with our partners since this crisis started; we have prepared a contingency plan with a figure. That figure in the plan should not be used as the figure of refugees that are in the country already. With the contingency plan, it means that we are preparing the resources. In case we reach that number, the contingency figure is 40,000 so far, which can be reversed,” the UNHCR representative said.
According to Mr. Canhandula, the UN body is trying to accelerate the registration process, to get the actual figure of Cameroonians in those states. Mr. Sadiya Farouq, the Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displayed Persons, said at the occasion that the federal government of Nigeria had started giving out relief materials to refugees in the affected states.
