Varsity gives aid to Boko Haram victims

olamide oni

March 1, 2016 11:33 AM

”People need to figure out how to live together again. And if that does not happen, the social fabric would not come back again."

American University of Nigeria

The American University of Nigeria, (AUN) has donated food supplies to the people of Michika in Adamawa and offered community counselling.

The people of Michica, a town formerly taken over by Boko Haram, have returned to their home but they still face problems adapting and returning to their lives.

”Today was our first trip as a peace initiative in Michika,” President of AUN, Margaret Ensign, said.

“We have a reconciliation sub-committee going back and forth for the last two months, and their work has been important in determining whether the people wanted us there. And we got a report last week that said two sets of important things were important. One is that hate language is increasing among youths, tensions were high, and there was a part that jumped out at me which said: the AUN/API is who we request to come and help us. We had never thought that when we started four years ago that as the widespread conflict begins to end.”

25 most affected families in the town have been gifted with food items. Dialogue sessions were also organised among different groups, in a bid to ending rising tensions.

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Ensign said: ”People need to figure out how to live together again. And if that does not happen, the social fabric would not come back again. I worked in Rwanda for a long time and I know what can happen if people don’t figure out how to live together again. They are making amazing progress in Rwanda, but that was because they took time to understand what happened after that genocide.

As we started to drive into the town, we saw women walking on the road, and I didn’t think much of it, until then it wasn’t 10 women or a 100 women, but thousands; all walking towards where we were going to meet them. And we had decided to feed just about 6,000. So, it was a reminder that the world and the national government needs to understand that there are hungry people up in these cities. The crisis is not over for them. They are hungry because they were not able to plant their crops. And that means they would be hungry till June or July; so, somehow we have to find a way to keep them fed.”

olamide oni