Displaced Persons in North-Eastern Nigeria: Causes, Effects and the Role of Social Workers

The displacement of people within their own countries is currently a common international and national phenomenon. Migration of internally displaced persons in the north-eastern part of Nigeria is caused by internal armed conflict, particularly caused by the Boko Haram insurgency. The internally displaced people are living in highly vulnerable conditions. They suffer discriminations, faced emotional trauma, experience significant deprivation and impoverishment. The paper focuses on the role of the social workers in assisting the internally displaced persons of the northeast who are ravaged by the operation of insurgents. The present study aims at examining the causes and effects of the displacement of persons in the study area. A mixed method of data was employed. Therefore, two hypotheses and four research questions were formulated to guide the study. A total of 278 respondents was utilised for the study and stratified random sampling was used to select the respondents. In addition to that, six respondents were engaged in an interview and purposive sampling was used to select the interviewers. The instruments used in the study are self designed questionnaire tagged the Internally Displaced Persons Questionnaire (IDPQ) and the interview protocol. The questionnaire has a reliability coefficient of 0.82. The t-test at 0.05 level of significance was used in testing the null hypotheses. While thematic analyses were used for the interview. The findings of the study show that there is no significant difference in the manner of people's displacement due to Boko Haram insurgency. However, there is a significant relationship between internally displaced persons and their vulnerability. Similarly, the result revealed that injustice, security lapses, weak and inefficient governance, illiteracy as well as unemployment are the causes of the displacement. Consequently, the effects of the displacement include lack of peace and stability, family disintegration, alienation, loss of economic opportunities, breakdown of cultural identity, loosening of social and family structure, interruption of children's schooling and increased poverty.