The National Union of Electricity Employees says victims of bandits attacks displaced from over 30 communities in Niger are taking refuge in some facilities of the Shiroro Hydro-Electric Power Station located in Shiroro Local Government Area of the state.
The northern zonal organising secretary of the union, Eyurentosanren Godwin, told journalists on Sunday that many of the displaced persons were taking shelter in Day Secondary School, Shiroro and Day Secondary School, Zumba.
A visit by NAN correspondent to the area showed that the facilities where the IDPs occupy are located within the area of operations of the Shiroro Hydro-Electric Power Station.
Mr Godwin stated that the IDPs had been using the camps for the past one month, constituting a threat to the power station and that they had yet to be profiled by the state government.
Mr Godwin, therefore, called for urgent government intervention to aid the IDPs by providing camps as well as addressing the security challenges to enable them to return to their communities.
He said that it was important for the station to be given “maximum protection from security threat presently going on in Shiroro Local Government Area”.
One of the victims, Aliyu Bala, from Gwalami-Kogo, said that he and others ran from their communities because of bandits attacks.
He said that since their arrival in the school, they had not received support from the government.
“The only supports we have received is from officials of the power station such as food and medical assistance,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), Ahmed Inga, said the state government had not received an official report on the IDPs from Shiroro Local Government Area.
He also said the agency would send its desk officer in the area to visit the camps where the IDPs are residing to enable for profiling of the IDPs and know their population size for intervention.
Sometime in October 2021, Suleiman Chikuba, the chairman of Shiroro LGA told reporters that five hundred communities in eight political wards in Niger were under the command of Boko Haram terrorists who had dislodged the Nigerian civil authority.
(NAN)
