IDPs have human rights, By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Statista published a report dated: Dec 12, 2022 on the complications and difficulties faced by internally displaced persons in Nigeria as follows:
Nigeria has the third highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa. In 2020, it counted 2.7 million internally displaced people. Overall, Africa has the largest number of IDPs in the world.
Internally displaced persons are persons who are forced to leave their house but remain within their country’s borders.

Then Dr Mercel Mbamalu a journalist published a in punchng dated 4th September 2025, and made the following germane points on the issues of IDPS in the country.

He said: “As I step into the overcrowded IDP camps, I’m met with the haunting reality of Nigeria’s humanitarian crisis. Over 3 million internally displaced persons are struggling to survive, their lives ravaged by insurgency, banditry, and communal clashes. The statistics are staggering: 1.8 million children at risk of severe acute malnutrition, 55 per cent of IDPs being children pushed out of schools, and at least 18 people dying daily at the Bama camp, Borno State. The European Union’s recent aid commitments, including €35 million in humanitarian assistance, are a lifeline; however, the Nigerian government’s response has been woefully inadequate, with chronic underfunding, mismanagement, and corruption exacerbating the crisis.

The impact of the US aid withdrawal continues to reverberate globally. In January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order, “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid”. The programme effectively suspends large portions of aid delivered through USAID, including health sector funding for vaccines and treatments for diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, as well as humanitarian assistance programmes.

Other Western donors, such as the UK, France, Germany and Sweden, also significantly reduced foreign aid budgets in 2024 and 2025, thereby increasing financial pressure on many developing countries.
There are human beings behind the vague statistics we scroll past on our phones: mothers who wake up with the cold at dawn because the thin plastic sheet over their family’s sleeping place does not stop the rain; children who go to sleep hungry because food distributions are late or absent; survivors of sexual violence who cannot find a single safe, confidential place to report abuse or heal. These are not abstractions. They are internally displaced persons (IDPs); people forced from their homes by conflict, violence, or disasters, who remain within their countries’ borders yet live daily lives that are often more precarious than refugees or even the poorest citizens. The moral and legal truth is simple: IDPs have human rights. The political and practical response, however, is woefully behind that fact.”

Globally, the scale of internal displacement has reached record proportions. By the end of 2024, some 83.4 million people were living in internal displacement; an unimaginable number of men, women and children denied the right to safety, shelter, water, health, education and dignity. Most were uprooted by conflict and violence; millions more fled floods, storms and other disasters increasingly linked to climate change. This is not someone else’s crisis; it is a global failure of prevention, protection and response.

Nigeria sits squarely in the centre of one of the world’s most complex displacement crises. The humanitarian architecture that responds to the scale of need (UN agencies, national commissions, the International Organization for Migration and countless NGOs) repeatedly warn that millions of Nigerians either live in camps or in host communities that strain to accommodate them. By the end of 2024, government and humanitarian data point to millions displaced across the northeast and other affected regions; responses remain underfunded, fragmented and, in far too many places, insufficient to uphold basic human rights.

When we say “deplorable conditions,” we must be specific. Reports from human rights organizations and humanitarian agencies describe overcrowded sites with inadequate shelter and insufficient latrines; unsafe water and collapsing waste management systems that make disease inevitable; food assistance falling short of caloric needs; health services absent or overwhelmed; children out of school and exposed to recruitment, abuse or exploitation; and women and girls facing heightened risks of gender-based violence with little or no access to protection, psychosocial care, or legal redress. In some settings, forced camp closures and hurried “returns” have been imposed without meaningful guarantees of safety or services, leaving people to fend for themselves in areas they fled precisely because those areas are insecure.

These violations are not regrettable accidents of chaos; they are failures of obligation. International law and regional instruments make clear that states bear the primary duty to protect and assist people displaced within their borders. The UN’s Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (1998) articulate rights to protection and assistance grounded in international human rights and humanitarian law. The African Union’s Kampala Convention reinforces those duties for African states and commits governments to prevent displacement, protect displaced populations, and ensure durable solutions. These are not optional niceties; they are legal and moral commitments that require budgets, institutions and accountability.

Yet the record reveals a yawning gap between law and lived reality. In Nigeria, humanitarian needs assessments and agency reports show that large shares of IDPs lack access to safe settlements, to clean water and latrines, to adequate shelter and to basic health services. Large-scale outbreaks of cholera, acute watery diarrhoea and other preventable diseases have repeatedly struck displacement settings where sanitation is deficient and access to vaccines and care is patchy. The United Nations has been forced to launch multi-hundred-million-dollar appeals for the Nigerian crisis, signalling both the scope of need and the chronic underfunding of the response. When the world fails to fund the basics (water, shelter, medicine) it is not just bureaucracy that suffers, it is human life and dignity.

What must change, and how, if we are serious that “IDPs have human rights” is not a slogan but a standard? The answer needs to span immediate humanitarian action, mid-term protection and resilience programming, and long-term political and economic solutions rooted in justice and accountability. Below are the concrete steps that states, international partners, donors and civic actors should adopt immediately.

First, scale up humanitarian assistance with accountability. The international appeals for Nigeria’s crises are not abstract budgets; they are lifelines. Donor governments and multilateral institutions must fund the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan fully and predictably, and make funding conditional on demonstrable protection outcomes; not just distributions. Donor support should prioritize WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), essential primary health care including vaccination campaigns in camps, sufficient shelter and non-food items, and cash assistance that gives families dignity and choice. Funding must also support protection services: safe spaces for women and girls, child protection programs, legal aid for documentation, and psychosocial support. The UN’s appeals and sector plans provide a template that must be matched by political will and resources.

Second, respect and implement rights in law and practice. Nigeria and other African states must fully operationalize the Kampala Convention and domestic policies to ensure IDPs’ rights to security, humanitarian assistance, documentation and durable solutions. The National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (and similar bodies) should be empowered with adequate budgets, staffing, and legal authority to coordinate durable solutions, registration and protection. Governments must stop forced or premature camp closures and returns until verifiable conditions (safety, services, livelihoods) are in place for returnees. The law provides the framework; it is implementation that is missing.

Third, prioritize protection and accountability. Protection is not peripheral; it is central. IDP sites must be safe spaces where women, children and other vulnerable groups can access confidential reporting, medical and psychosocial care, and legal redress. Human rights organizations have repeatedly documented abuses in displacement settings (including sexual violence, unlawful detention and arbitrary treatment by state actors) that require investigations and accountability. Security operations should protect, not punish, displaced people. The state must ensure security-sector training on human rights and civilian protection and investigate allegations of abuse swiftly and transparently.

Fourth, integrate humanitarian response with social protection and development. Camps are not permanent solutions; neither is perpetual humanitarian dependency. National social protection systems must include IDPs — cash transfers, health insurance, access to education and vocational training. Donors and development actors should shift from short-term emergency projects to medium-term programs that create pathways to livelihoods, housing rehabilitation, and community reconciliation. These investments reduce long-term costs and stabilize communities that would otherwise become chronic zones of deprivation and recruitment by violent actors. The UN and development partners have frameworks for such transitions; what is missing is sustained financing and political commitment.

Fifth, place displaced people at the center of solutions. Too often, humanitarian programs are top-down. IDPs are not passive beneficiaries; they are rights-holders. Genuine participation means involving camp residents and displaced-led organizations in camp management, protection monitoring, and program design. When people are given leadership roles and avenues to earn income (through vocational training, small grants, cooperative projects) their dignity is restored and social cohesion with host communities improves. UN and NGO partners have documented the positive outcomes of refugee- and IDP-led initiatives; scaling these models is common-sense.

Sixth, improve data, registration and documentation. Lack of identity documents is a practical barrier to accessing services, cash, education and legal protections. Robust, secure registration systems, in partnership with national civil registration authorities, must be funded and implemented to ensure IDPs are visible in national planning. Data collection must be disaggregated by age, gender and vulnerability so that responses are tailored and equitable. UN and government registration exercises have made progress in parts of Nigeria, but gaps remain and affect protection outcomes.

Seventh, prepare for and prevent health crises. Cholera and acute watery diarrhoea outbreaks in displacement settings are preventable with proper WASH, timely vaccination campaigns, and functioning health referral systems. Health ministries, with support from WHO, UNICEF and partners, must prioritize cholera vaccination where risks are high and ensure ready surge capacity during outbreaks. Investing in WASH infrastructure in camps and host communities is cheaper and morally superior to reacting to preventable epidemics. Recent outbreaks in displacement-affected areas underscore this urgency.

Eighth, invest in durable housing, land and property rights. When people can return, they must have real choices: safe return with restored property rights and services; local integration with access to land and livelihoods; or assisted resettlement elsewhere. Governments should implement transparent processes for land restitution, compensation and reconstruction that protect property rights and prevent renewed conflict. Durable housing solutions are as much a justice issue as a development one.

Ninth, demand political solutions to drivers of displacement. Relief without prevention will only sustain a cycle of suffering. Long-term reductions in displacement require political engagement to resolve conflicts, address root grievances, hold perpetrators of violence to account and strengthen local governance. International partners must support diplomacy, conflict mediation and inclusive governance reforms that tackle the structural causes of displacement. Human rights must be at the center of any peace process.

Finally, ordinary citizens and local civil society matter. Solidarity can take many forms: local host communities need support and recognition; grassroots groups can be funded to deliver services and protection; journalists can keep attention on the crisis and hold authorities to account; faith organizations and professional associations can advocate for humane treatment. In a functioning democracy, citizens pressure leaders to spend tax revenue on human dignity rather than the narrow interests of a few. Public outrage and sustained media attention have forced policy changes before; they can do so again.

We must also be honest about why the response falters. Governments in affected areas often face genuine capacity constraints: stretched budgets, overstretched health systems, insecurity restricting access, and competing national priorities. International donors, too, have finite resources and a crowded list of global emergencies. But these realities do not absolve us of responsibility; they demand smarter, rights-based prioritization, better coordination and an insistence that those in authority live up to commitments they signed on to years ago. The difference between a credible response and the status quo is political will: allocating funds, protecting civilians, prosecuting abuses, and centring rights in recovery plans.

There is also a deeper moral point. The phrase “IDPs have human rights” should not be reserved for political speeches or NGO banners. It should translate into practice: a roof that keeps rain and heat at bay, a latrine that does not sow disease, a classroom for a child, the ability for a mother to work safely, access to documentation so a life can be rebuilt. Rights are not rhetorical flourishes; they are the scaffolding of dignity. When any state allows millions to linger in conditions that erode those scaffolds, it betrays its own constitution and the international promises it has made.

To editors and publishers: an op-ed like this is an urgent editorial imperative. Shine your light where it matters most. To donors: fund the basics and condition support on measurable protection outcomes. To governments: translate laws into budgets and bureaucracies into protection machinery. To citizens: do not look away. The lives behind these statistics are your neighbours in a moral sense; they are human beings entitled to the same rights as any of us.

If we succeed (by scaling assistance, embedding rights in law and practice, ensuring protection and accountability, and investing in durable solutions) we will do more than alleviate suffering. We will restore the most elemental social contract: that the state protects the dignity of everyone within its borders. That must be the minimum demand of our time. IDPs have human rights. Let us, at last, act like we believe it.

*EMMANUEL NNADOZIE ONWUBIKO is the founder of HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA and was NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF NIGERIA *