Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, has decried the neglect and poor state of Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in the country.
He called for an urgent panel of inquiry to investigate how the committee set up by last government on IDPs spent the resources generated.
Speaking Monday in Kaduna at a Muslim Stakeholders’ Strategic Dialogue on Orphans and Widows organised by the Jaiz Charity and Development Foundation in collaboration with the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN), the Sultan urged Muslims to find solutions to the problem of IDP’s facing the Muslim Ummah.
He explained that millions of naira was donated by various government, non-governmental organisation, stakeholders and individuals while commissioning the committee, regretting that the challenges facing the IDPs were not yet solved.
He emphasized the need for accountability and transparency in public fund and sympathized with victims of Boko Haram attacks and other clashes, urging the Muslim Ummah within and outside the country to come to the aid of the Internally Displaced Persons.
“The Northern Traditional Rulers’ Council wrote a paper to Goodluck Jonathan when he was president of the country on the state of the nation and one of the points we raised was caring for the victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East where we advised him to take care of things before they escalate.
“I don’t know if it was because of that paper that the presidency then launched an official fund-raising for the IDP’s where over N90 billion was donated on the spot at the fund raising because I was there physically.
“Where are the funds that were donated that day, these are the questions we need to ask our leaders.
“Today, our IDP’s are in a very sorrowful state, they are dying of hunger, they lacked clothes and other basic human necessities, especially with the harmattan that has come in, yet, so much was raised in their name that is yet to get to them.
“We, the Muslim ummah, need to wake up and help our brothers and sisters, we should not and must not leave all these problems in the hands of the government, especially the government of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states,” he noted.
In his remarks, the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, said taking care of orphans was a must in Islam.
“That is why Allah says when you find a child on the streets, you must take care of him as it is part of being a Muslim.
“Whoever eats out of the wealth of the orphans is eating for himself hell fire, because it is forbidden in Islam and the welfare of the orphans should not be compromised”, he added.
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