More than half of Nigeria’s Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are children, a new report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed.
The report, titled ‘Report of Internally Displaced Personsin Nigeria 2023′, and published on Monday shows that 1,134,828 Nigerians and 251,082 are currently displaced from their homes within the country and 50.3 per cent of them are children.
“Further analysis reveals that out of the total population of surveyed IDPs, 50.3 per cent were mainly minors and below the age of 18 years. Only 49.7 per cent were within the age of 18 years and above,” the report states.
It also shows that 63.4 per cent of this population including children have never attended school or been exposed to formal education.
Only 15.7 per cent of this figure managed to complete primary education before they were displaced from their homes.
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“Analysis by educational level completed was assessed during the survey. Among all individuals interviewed, 63.4 per cent have never attended school, 15.7 per cent completed primary school, less primary (11.6%), lower secondary (5.2%), upper secondary (3.4%), post-secondary nontertiary (0.4%), and tertiary (0.3%),” NBS’ data shows.
“The result also shows that 38.1 per cent are currently attending school while 8.7 per cent are currently attending any vocational training.”
Educational demography of the IDPs. Source: NBS.
The report shows that farmers or herders clash, Boko Haram insurgency, natural disasters, banditry and kidnapping remain the leading causes of displacement in Northern Nigeria.
It also highlights how most of the displacements are human-induced rather than caused by flooding or other natural disasters.
In the survey carried out across seven states in northwest and northeast Nigeria, Borno State has the highest number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) with over 800,000 people. These people are from 206,753 households spread across the 221 camps within the state.
“Borno State recorded the highest number of displaced households (206,753) and 877,299 IDPs representing 77.3 per cent of the entire surveyed population,” the report states.
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Demographic distribution of the displaced persons. Source: NBS.
The report also revealed that 83.4 per cent of the IDPs have lived in camps for four years or more, and only a fraction of the population have stayed at the shelter for a few days.
On a state-by-state basis, Sokoto has the highest number of minors living in its IDP camps across the state at 54.1 per cent; Adamawa and Benue states are pegged second at 52 per cent each. Nasarawa has 50.9 per cent; Borno, the state with the highest number of displaced persons has 49.2 per cent; Katsina has 47.8 per cent; while Yobe has only 41.5 per cent.
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