By Amos Aar
VICTIMS Support Fund (VSF) on Wednesday distributed food items to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Okpute Community of Oju local government area of Benue State.
Also said to be donated were a tricycle ambulance and medical consumables to a Primary Health Care Centre in Okpute. Journalists were told the ambulance was being conveyed to the Oju Primary Health Care Centre as at the time of this briefing.
VSF Chairperson, Toyosi Ogunsinji Akerele, told journalists at Okpute Community where the humanitarian organisation distributed food items to one thousand households displaced during the communal crisis between Bonta Community in Konshisha local government area and Okpute from Oju LGA in May 2021.
In an effort to ensure the maintenance and judicious use of the 2.5KVA solar inverter and medical items they earlier donated to Bonta Primary Health Care Centre in Konshisha LGA on 1st July, 2022, the VSF team on their way to Oju, stopped over at the facility to check how the equipment were being used. Ms Akerele, after the inspection, expressed satisfaction that “they were actually using the inverter to administer treatment on some of the patients in that local government”.
Giving hint about the deadline of the VSF intervention programme in Benue State, the chairperson said, “this Programme is going to be on for another couple of months, we started in May and we are targeting six thousand (6000) households in Benue State and we are hoping that at the end of this intervention with a minimum of 6000 households being given food, medical materials and all of that, this will reach at least hundreds or thousands of different families across the most affected local government areas and communities.
“I earlier announced that we are donating shelters to Ortese IDP camp and we are launching economic empowerment programme as part of this project so that most of those people that we have been giving food items after supporting them for a protracted period of time of 6 months, we are able to give them economic grants to help them restart their lives, have some form of business to be able to sustain their families after this project”.
She added that “on Friday this week, we are also going to kick off the complete rehabilitation and automation of the Naka waterworks. You probably know that before now, a lot of citizens in that area died of typhoid fever because they don’t have any source of pipe-bone portable drinking water. We agreed on the milestone and the work plans at the office at the Victims Support Fund and we are hoping that by the middle of October, we should be able to officially have the Governor come and commission it. It’s going to be fully automated waterworks with solar panels, accommodation for the facility managers and we are working strategically with the Benue State Water Board to implement that project. It’s definitely a project that our Chairman, General T. Y. Danjuma is proud of, given that he is a detribalised Nigerian Philanthropist himself”, Toyosi said
Barr Toyosi further announced that the Okpute Community will be given a borehole because they don’t have it. “We are giving this Community a brand new borehole as well because they don’t have any water facility in this entire neighborhood.
“There have been a lot of killings on this road at different times and that has really discouraged a lot of people and made them to desert their homelands and they try to seek refuge in other communities. So, we are hoping that by the time we are able to implement this comprehensive emergency support programme, a lot of people that deserted this Community will be able to return and some kind of normalcy will be reinstated within the communities”.
Earlier VSF State Programme Coordinator, Ms Mndepawe Kwaghe Jonah, gave a breakdown of the items distributed to Okpute IDPs yesterday (31/09/2022) as: 5kg each of bag of rice, maize, millet, soya beans and one litre each of palm oil, vegetable oil, salt, 1kg of sugar, 100 cubes of maggi and 100 cubes of seasoning.
“We have been coming since April and we noticed that there’s a case of malnutrition among children so we are giving social packs, vitamin brown formula to be precise, to profiled children that have been malnourished over the months”, Mndepawe said.
A beneficiary of the gesture, Mrs Abigail James Odanu, a single mother of 6 children who said she lost her husband (a teacher) during the Okpute/Bonta crisis said it has been difficult for her to fend for the children and was happy that the food items which she collected for the 3rd time yesterday would do her a great deal.
“My husband died when I was pregnant with this baby I’m carrying, he was teaching at Methodist High School.
“I and my first son have Secondary School certificates but there is no work, “the 37-year-old woman narrated her ordeal!
Elder Okwere Thomas with nine children said, “they (warriors from Bonta) did so many things to me, they destroyed my farm and my house. I’m now living in another village with somebody. This food I have collected today will help me a lot and I really appreciate VFS”.
Mr Orto Onwe, a father of ten children said he collected the items for the fourth time yesterday and it has been very useful to his household.
