NIGERIA-INAUGURATION/ BOKO HARAM DISPLACED Boko Haram displaced cautiously optimistic of return home as Buhari sworn in

Record ID: 165439

  • Title: NIGERIA-INAUGURATION/ BOKO HARAM DISPLACED Boko Haram displaced cautiously optimistic of return home as Buhari sworn in
  • Date: 29th May 2015
  • Summary: KADUNA, NIGERIA (MARCH 28, 2015) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Hausa) DOMINIC STEPHEN, DISPLACED PERSON SAYING: "So I pray for General Buhari to take over successfully. Then he should find all the people who have been displaced and resettle us back in our villages." (SOUNDBITE (Hausa) ENOCH STEPHEN, DISPLACED PERSON SAYING: "I want to go back home to farm so that we can have enough food."
  • Embargoed: 13th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria
  • City:
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA93L65S71PSYWWNG0CEFGNL3XN
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Christina Stephen chats with a friend as they prepare a meal for their families. They live in a compound housing people who fled their homes fearing violence from Islamist militants, Boko Haram.
    Christina and her family arrived here in Kaduna, a town in north east Nigeria early last year after escaping from their town in Madagali in Adamawa State nearly 1,000 kilometres away.
    Life is increasingly difficult for the millions of people who have been displaced in a six-year Boko Haram insurgency that once saw the group control an area the size of Belgium in the northeast of Africa's biggest oil producer.
    "My house at home is different from this one. We have a fence around the house and a proper kitchen but here we cook outside without a roof. Sometimes it rains on us while cooking," said Christina.
    The fight against Boko Haram is now being led by Nigeria's newly elected President, Muhammadu Buhari.
    Three decades after he first came to power in a military coup, Buhari was sworn in on Friday, (May 29) giving him control of an African giant struggling with slowing economic growth and a raging Islamist insurgency.
    The formal swearing-in marks a remarkable political turn-around for Buhari, who has gone from military dictator in the mid-1980s to a born-again democrat swept to power on the back of a landslide victory at the ballot box in March.
    However, he inherits a host of problems from outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan, whose five years in charge were marked by massive corruption scandals and aimless or haphazard economic, security and foreign policy-making.
    Dominic Stephen, Christina's husband says Boko Haram destroyed much of his livelihood and hopes the new government will be able to turn things around.
    "Two of my eldest children are supposed to graduate from elementary school this year but that is not possible with the situation. Another one is supposed to graduate from secondary school but we don't have money to register for the final examination. I have lost all my wealth; my sheep, cows, chickens and everything. I don't know how to start my life all over again," he said.
    Buhari has already vowed to spare no effort to defeat Boko Haram, which has been pushed back dramatically by joint Nigerian, Chadian, Cameroonian and Nigerian offensives.
    The group has been driven out of nearly all the territory it captured. Remaining militants have retreated into northeastern Nigeria's Sambisa forest.
    Many families who fled from Boko Haram may not be ready to go home just yet but are optimistic that Buhari's promised campaign to defeat Boko Haram will succeed.
    "So I pray for General Buhari to take over successfully. Then he should find all the people who have been displaced and resettle us back in our villages," added Dominic.
    "I want to go back home to farm so that we can have enough food," said Enoch Stephen, Dominic and Christina's 12-year-old son.
    Boko Haram launched its insurgency in 2009, attacking towns and villages and killing thousands of people in pursuit of a state adhering to strict sharia law.
    The militants have been accused of using women and children as sexual slaves and suicide bombers.
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