After working with local stakeholders to curb the humanitarian crisis that ravaged Borno State due to the activities of Boko Haram insurgents, some international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have started leaving the state.
Consequently, they have scaled down their humanitarian operations and prepared local partners to continue with skeletal services.
Others, which have stayed back, LEADERSHIP Sunday learnt have scaled down their operations.
Some of the INGOs’ officials, who spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity, said they were shifting focus to the North West, where banditry, cattle rustling, kidnapping and other criminal activities are inflicting hardship on the people and stalling economic and social activities.
Although. LEADERSHIP Sunday could not establish the exact number and identities of the INGOs that have left the state, it was learnt that some of them are agencies of the United Nations (UN) and other global institutions.
In a reaction to the development, some security experts and the president of the Borno State Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (BOCCIMA), Alhaji Ahmed Ashemi, said the INGOs were facing serious funding constraints as donors were backing out of their operations.
During the over 14-year Boko Haram insurgency, which led to a serious humanitarian crisis, the NGOs played crucial roles in providing aid and support for affected local populations.
The coming of the NGOs, especially the INGOs stimulated the state’s battered economy caused by the destruction of public and private structures worth billions of naira by the insurgents.
Prior to the crisis, Borno, one of the states in Nigeria bordering three African countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroon, was a beehive of activities as a result of the influx of business merchants from these countries, who in turn extended their trading activities to the Central African Republic, Sudan among others.
The atrocious acts of the terrorists led to an end to trans-border businesses and the economic fortune of the once acclaimed “home of peace”. Also, the displacement of over two million people by the terrorists brought hunger, homelessness and diseases in the internally displaced camps (IDPs) the citizens took refuge before the intervention of the INGOs and their local counterparts.
Many of the UN agencies did their best in tackling hunger and malnutrition which were rife in the camps established by the state government both within and outside Maiduguri, the state capital.
According to security experts, who commented on the continued stay of some NGOs or INGOs in Borno and those leaving, the continuous operations of the humanitarian partners in the challenging environment may have led to logistical difficulties, including access restrictions.
One of the security experts, who did not want to be named, said staff fatigue and burnout with repeated exposure to traumatic situations and resource constraints, could lead to exhaustion and decreased effectiveness.
He added that the over-reliance on local support by the humanitarian partners could also create dependency, undermining community resilience and autonomy.
The expert said the INGOs may also be facing scrutiny, suspicion, or opposition from local authorities, communities, or other stakeholders, adding that sustained operations could strain the financial resources of the humanitarian partners, and thus leading to funding shortfalls and limitations on programme implementation among others.
In his comments, Ashemi (president of BOCCIMA), who admitted that the activities of the numerous NGOs in the state had been scaled down, said their stay in Borno had become protracted.
Ashemi said when someone that was supposed to be an ad-hoc personnel overstays, a lot of issues would come up, stressing that in that situation, even some positive aspects would grow negatively in the long-run.
The BOCCIMA boss said there were several factors, such as donor fatigue, stressing that the people donating funds to the NGOs were tired.
He said the second one is that when the personnel the NGOs engage, remain too long on the job, they resort to certain attitudes and actions that could be counter-productive.
Ashemi said, “And all these factors are as a result of their long stay. In the beginning when the NGOs arrived in the state at the peak of the insurgency, they affected the cost of everything in the capital city of Maiduguri, especially accommodation because they were renting houses exorbitantly.
“Even the food and non-food items they were buying to distribute to the IDPs got astronomically increased in prices and that had negative effects on the citizens. Now, I observed that most of the ad- hoc NGOs have left because in their case it was a short-term financing that they were getting from certain individuals or groups.
“Like I said, the donor fatigue has come in and the people cannot finance them. So they have left. Now I have a problem with the big NGOs. I see them as agents of certain world interests and they are promoting the interests of those world powers that are financing them.
“And mostly in situation like ours where the Boko Haram terrorists are, there were insinuations that the Boko Haram crisis was instigated by world forces. So, these big NGOs cannot be absolved of the allegations of working for certain vested interests,” Ashemi said.
Speaking on behalf of the chairman of the Borno State Board of Internal Revenue Services (BOIRS) on the activities of the NGOs, the head of enforcement and board secretary, Barr Ardo Buba, said despite the recent developments, the INGOs or NGOs as far as the state was concerned had tried where humanitarian interventions were required.
He said the coming of the NGOs to Borno notwithstanding any shortcomings added to the increase of the state’s internally-generated revenue (IGR) because they normally employ their workers from the state and rent facilities.
Buba said they pay what is referred to as withholding tax on the facilities they rent, adding that they also return 10 percent of what they pay landlords and remit same to the government.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior official of one of the INGOs in the state corroborated the view of the BOCCIMA president, as he admitted that the activities of the humanitarian partners had been scaled down of recent in the state.
An official of a prominent INGOs said as the crisis reduces in the state, majority of the humanitarian partners are shifting their focus to the North Western part of the country where banditry is currently devastating the citizens.
He added that international donors were equally reducing focus in Borno having done much for the state over the past years of the insurgency.
He said the NGOs were collaborating with the local partner to continue from where some of the foreign organisations would stop before leaving the state.
The official said the humanitarian crisis in Borno had been gradually reduced over the years.
He commended the Borno State government over the resettlement initiative it embarked upon which had seen thousands of displaced persons resettled in their ancestral home voluntarily and in dignity.
