Babachir Lawal: SGF says he was once an Internally Displaced Person

Lawal made the revelation on Thursday, October 15, 2015, while speaking at the 21st Nigerian Economic Summit (NES) in Abuja.

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal has revealed that he used to be an Internally Displaced Person (IDP).

Lawal made the revelation on Thursday, October 15, 2015, while speaking at the 21st Nigerian Economic Summit (NES) in Abuja.

He said further that he was left homeless for six months due to the activities of Boko Haram in Adamawa State.

“Two local governments in the central senatorial district – mine and the next one on its way to Yola – were completely taken over by insurgents. My house was the headquarters of one of the Amir or whatever they call themselves. So, for six months, I was an internally displaced person,” Lawal said.

“Within that period, four people, my younger ones and others were on admission at the hospital in Mubi, the next big town to my own, where there’s some presence of general hospital. When Boko Haram entered Mubi, all the people had to evacuate the hospital and run into the mountains, no matter the degree of your sickness,” he added.

“The telephones, the base stations had been blown by Boko Haram. In any case, the battery had run out of the telephones. We didn’t know whether they were eating or whether they were dead. We didn’t know where they were,” Lawal said.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgency has left thousands dead and many more homeless.

President Muhammadu Buhari has however urged the country’s military to wipe out the sect and end the insurgency by December 2015.