By MIKE AUDU, Jalingo –
As the sun rises gently over the green hills of southern Taraba, 14-year-old Terseer Mtomga who hails from Tor-Musa village in Wukari Local Government Area of Taraba State squats beside a pot of boiling yam in a makeshift IDP camp in Jootar in Benue State. His hands are calloused from fetching firewood and hawking firelighters. His eyes, though sharp, carry the sadness of a boy whose only dream of becoming a doctor fades with every dawn.
Terseer should be in school. But he isn’t. Neither are hundreds of other children growing up in neglected, forgotten camps, their childhoods swallowed by the long, bitter ethnic conflicts that have displaced thousands in the southern part of Taraba State.
While Taraba State Governor, Dr Agbu Kefas, champions a free education policy to secure the state’s future, a generation of displaced children remains trapped in a cycle of trauma, ignorance, and despair.
“We have been here for over 5 years and counting,” says Peter Achibo, leader of an IDP community from Wukari Local Government Area. “Our children have never seen the inside of a classroom. They don’t know the sound of a bell, the feel of chalk or the joy of morning assembly.”
The IDPs, mostly Tiv families displaced from villages in Wukari, Donga, Takum, and Ibi Local Government Areas, have found no safety in return. Many of their ancestral homes have been overrun, some turned into grazing fields. Others, like parts of Chonku ward, have seen new tensions rise over recent plans by the government to convert some lands into a military barracks.
For the Tiv people, it feels like a systematic erasure, not just of territory, but of identity.
Children of war
Joy Mfena, a fiery students’ activist who recently led a fact-finding mission to camps in Ibi and Wukari, describes what she saw as “heartbreaking.”
“These children are growing up with visions of blood and bullets,” she says. “They have seen dead bodies of relatives mutilated and left to rot in bushes. They are angry, traumatised, and completely disconnected from the idea of hope. Education is the only ladder that can pull them out of this pit.” But it’s a ladder many of them can’t reach.
While the Taraba State government rolled out a commendable free education initiative that has attracted more enrolments and led to the distribution of learning materials and planned distribution of school uniforms across public schools, none of these benefits are reaching or would reach the children living in the camps.
“The policy is beautiful,” says Ioryina Sewuese, an educationist and community volunteer. “But what is the plan for the displaced? If they can’t go to school in their home communities, should they remain lost to the system?”
An angry generation
Chief Joseph Saater Undu, President of the Tiv Youth Organization (TYO), Abuja Chapter, delivered a chilling warning during a recent youth roundtable in Abuja said, “I cannot end this speech without drawing your attention to the following issues which are like a time bomb to our society. The continuous stay of our children in various IDPs for over a decade portends great danger for our collective safety in the near future,” he said.
“This generation is young, energetic and angry. Like a dying horse, their brutal kick is awaiting all of us. Patiently, they are waiting for an opportunity to take vengeance on the rest of us.” His voice cracked as he painted a bleak future.
“These are children whose visions are clouded by the sight of blood and mutilated bodies of their family members. Many are orphans, lonely and uneducated. If nothing is done urgently, they will become a nuclear bomb that will send all of us to our early graves tomorrow.”
Justice, land, and healing
The conflict between Tiv and Jukun, and separately Tiv and Fulani herders, has brewed for decades. Periodic outbursts of violence since 1991 have deepened mistrust and widened the gap for reconciliation. The failure of key stakeholders; traditional leaders, political actors, and federal authorities to sit at a roundtable and address core grievances has left many communities in limbo.
In this atmosphere, Governor Kefas’s push for education and development faces a moral question: Can we build a better Taraba when a part of it is burning in silence?
Yakubu Samaila Esq, a human rights lawyer, insists that the state and federal governments must intervene directly. “Free education must be extended to the camps through mobile classrooms, trained volunteer teachers, and mental health support,” he argues. “This is not just a moral duty. It’s a national security necessity.”
For now, the camps remain filled with echoes of laughter lost, of futures fading. As Terseer stirs the yam on fire, his younger sister, Doolumun, mimics a teacher using a broken slate and a stick. Her “students”, all children displaced like her sit on the bare ground, hungry not just for food, but for knowledge.
These children are not asking for much. Just a chance to learn. A chance to grow. A chance to heal. And perhaps, a chance to forgive. As Governor Kefas clocks two years on May 29th without any deliberate effort or even mention of the issue of displaced people in his home Local Government and zone, the world watches with anticipation what he will do differently to address the issue in the remaining two years of his tenure.