Abuja: The President of Lawyers Alert, Mr Rommy Mom, has urged the Federal Government to prioritise returning Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to their ancestral homes by dislodging the perpetrators of violence.
Mom made the call during his contribution to a panel discussion on Monday at the 2025 Media and Development Conference in Abuja, organised by the Centre for Journalism, Innovation and Development (CJID).
The panel discussion was on ‘Pathways to Peace and Public Safety through People-Centred Approaches and Conflict Accountability’.
He expressed concern that the Federal Government had allocated significant funds to provide housing units and other infrastructure at IDP camps, when those resources could instead be used to address the root causes of violence driving people from their communities.
Mom said that IDPs, particularly women and children, were highly vulnerable in the camps and exposed to violations such as trafficking and sexual assault.
According to him, these violations should prompt authorities to implement stronger measures to address the causes of displacement, as the situation requires urgent, coordinated intervention.
“As it is today in these places (IDP camps), and I will talk about Benue, for example.
“There seems to be an issue of taking back IDPs to their lands as something that they should plan for forever.
“In the interim, persons are born in IDP camps, some are trafficked,” he said.
Mom said that the Federal Government in the last administration allocated a lot of resources to provide housing units in IDP camps, which could imply that the chances of IDPS returning to their ancestral homes, where they have a spiritual connection and dignity, were slim.
“I think these resources can be channelled towards dislodging persons who are propagating violence and returning the IDPs to their places,” he said.
Mom said communities could seek redress by collaborating with credible CSOs and using strategic impact litigation as a practical approach, while also being educated on their rights to safety.
Speaking also, Mr Jude Ilo, the Chief Executive Officer of the Hague Institute for Innovation in Law, criticised the creation of community solutions without involving community members, stressing that meaningful participation was critical to achieving long-term success.
Ilo underscored the importance of understanding challenges through the community’s lens by listening to them and building mutual trust through empathy.
He added that trust would grow if the government fulfilled its security commitments and ensured that justice was administered to perpetrators of violence, rather than treating them with kid gloves.
On his part, the Managing Editor of Premium Times, Mr Idris Akinbanjo, urged journalists to be circumspect in their reporting and not to wait until conflicts become violent before reporting.
Akinbanjo said that journalists should report on the root causes of conflicts, rather than just the triggers of violence, while adhering to professional ethics that prioritise accuracy over speed.
Similarly, Mr Maxwell Atti, the Executive Director of Energy Care Development Initiative, stressed the need for gender inclusion in community-based solutions for conflicts and cautioned against treating safety issues as mere data without humanising them.
The conference, which began on Monday, would end on Thursday, with a National Health Dialogue.
The 2025 theme for the conference is ‘Reimagining Democracy, Development and Data for the next decade’.
