PROTECTION OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS IN NIGERIA, THE NEED FOR A VIABLE POLICY AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Abstract

Displacement is a menace in many countries of the world. Over 160 million of world population has been forced out from their area of primary residence in the last five years. Most of these persons displaced found themselves in that situation mainly as a result of several drivers of displacement ranging from armed conflict like is the case presently in Ukraine and Sudan. Others occur as a result of generalised violence, natural disasters like flooding or even drought or hurricane, famine, human rights violations and other reasons namely environmental degradation, displacement induced by main made projects etc. in different climes like united states where natural disasters like hurricane is apparent, Europe, Canada and Asia, states have responded positively in adopting strategies to address the ugly trend. They have enacted law and initiated policies to be driven by the laws. This research has a task of finding out whether or not there is a policy and legal framework for protection of IDPs in Nigeria. The work aims at discovering whether protection under the constitution for all citizens is enough to take care of IDPs in spite of their vulnerability. The research found out that there is no legal framework in Nigeria for IDPs protection and also a policy framework as the one in place is yet to be adopted, the work at the end concluded and recommended that there cannot be a valid protection of IDPs without legal and policy framework in place in Nigeria.