73 killed in Adamawa, Kano floods, Jonathan home submerged

No fewer than 73 have been killed in flood incidents that ravaged  Adamawa and Kano states recently

Fifty of the deaths were recorded in Adamawa State while 23 casualties were recorded in Kano State.

The Adamawa flood incidents which affected 11 communities also left  71 people  injured.

The Executive Secretary of Adamawa  State Emergency Management Agency (ADSEMA), Malam Suleiman Mohammed, and his Kano State Emergency Management Agency (KSEMA) counterpart, Dr Saleh Jili, made the disclosure in Yola and Kano respectively, yesterday.

The Executive Secretary of ADSEMA, Malam Suleiman Mohammed blamed the flooding on the release of water from Lagdo Dam in neighbouring Cameroon.

Mohammed said also that the flood destroyed 172,000 farmlands and food crops worth millions of naira.

“Some of the affected local government areas are Numan, Shelleng, Yola South, Yola North, Demsa, Mayo Belwa and Michika,” he said.

He added that the agency had provided clothes, foodstuffs, drugs, mosquito nets, blankets and buckets for victims to assuage their suffering.

“The items were donated by the state government, the Federal Government and by other donors,” he said.

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Mohammed also said that ADSEMA would collaborate with the National Emergency Management Agency to move affected communities to safer areas.

“We will continue to sensitise the communities about the dangers of living in flood-prone areas,” he said.

Speaking at  an event to mark the 2022 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR) in Kano on Friday,  the Executive Secretary of the Kano State Emergency Management Agency, Dr Saleh Jili disclosed  that the disaster also displaced 20,399 persons, injured 100 others, destroyed 15,000 farmlands and property worth over N2.1 billion in the affected communities from April to date.

According to him, the state government has adopted proactive mechanisms to mitigate risk and disaster across the state.

Ex-President Jonathan’s home submerged by flood

Otuoke, the hometown of former President Goodluck Jonathan in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, has been ravaged by severe flood with the home of the ex-President submerged. In continuation of his assessment of the flood situation in the state, Governor Douye Diri visited the community yesterday. Speaking to journalists, Diri lamented the degree of destruction caused by what he described as an “attack by natural disaster” on the livelihood of Bayelsans.

He stressed that Otuoke, which is the host community of a federal university, had been submerged and most of the locals displaced, including the home of the Jonathans. The governor, however, urged the people not to despair, assuring them that the state government had put in place machinery to provide relief materials and medical assistance to victims of the flood. He equally empathized with the former president, who he said is now also internally displaced as a result of the flood. Diri visited the former president’s mother, Madam Eunice Jonathan, in the community and assured her that the state government was with her and the people of Otuoke.

“Now I am in Ogbia, precisely at the residence of the former president of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. You can see the degree of destruction here in Otuoke. The water current is as if there is a river here. This is what I have been saying. Bayelsa is under the attack of natural disaster. The premises of our former president, and the whole community is under attack. And this is where you also have the federal university. This situation makes the former president an IDP. Let me also use this opportunity to empathize with my leader, the former president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who has joined me as one of the IDPs because I was one of the first victims in my community.”

The Nation