A Non Governmental Organisation, Children Government of Nigeria, said on Thursday that it was planning to generate N2.4 billion towards the rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the country.
Mr Patrick Ikpemeh, the National Coordinator of the NGO, said this in on the sideline of the children’s visit to the Headquarters of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) in Abuja.
According to him, a number of credible Nigerians like Former Head of State Abdulsalami Abubakar, Father Matthew Kukah, Mr Emeka Ayanoku and Mrs Oby Ezekwesili would be made members of the trust fund committee to administer the funds.
“We are soliciting the help of Nigerians to be able to raise this fund; we hope to come to an understanding with the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) and telecom operators to achieve this.
“We want every subscriber in Nigeria to voluntarily donate N5 from their airtime every month to the fund that will give us N60 per subscriber.
“If we have 60 per cent of 160 million subscribers contributing to this fund, then we can indeed achieve what we aim to achieve in totally rehabilitating all those who had been adversely affected by the insurgency.
“So the children plead with Nigerians to lend a hand because a little contribution from individual will go a long way to soothe the hurt of our brothers and sisters who have been affected,” he said.
The Child President, Miss Hauwa Musa, while speaking on behalf of the children, called on the government to stop paying lip service to setting up committees that never resolved any issue and act fast.
“To promote peace those who pay the price for peace with their lives and beyond must be recognised and honoured.
“The families they left behind as orphans, widows and the wounded must be catered for.’’
The child president added that the other aspect of peace is the rehabilitation of the IDPs which she said was the joint responsibility of both the government and the people.
Musa said that our greatest resources and wealth was our population, adding that Nigerians have the capacity to close the IDP camps in one month without asking government for one naira.
“The strength of this project is children as they advocate, we call for various donations, we will ensure that all our family members donate and of course there will be no one who will say no to a child,” she said.
The children government is an initiative of Care 4 Heroes Initiative and has children of ages 14 and below as members. (NAN)