Across Nigeria, unprecedented and incredible flooding has submerged several lands and territories and wreaked havoc and destruction in its wake. Stretching from Kano and Kogi in the North, right down to Bayelsa and Anambra States in the South, the destruction has been massive. Several communities have been uprooted, houses submerged, properties destroyed, lives lost and hopelessness has engulfed residents of these communities across the country. According to the Federal Government, the death toll from the disaster stands at 612, with 2,776 people injured and 1.4 million persons displaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A former President, Goodluck Jonathan\u2019s house in\nBayelsa State had its entire ground floor submerged in the flood, with the\nState Governor declaring that the former President is now an internally\ndisplaced person. In Kogi State, the flood had taken over nine Local Government\nAreas as at the beginning of October 2022, sweeping away farmlands, submerging\nroads and buildings, including the Kogi State House of Assembly Quarters. In\nImo State, at least 33 communities in Ohaji-Egbema Local Government Area are\nravaged by the flood. In Anambra State,\ncommunities in Ogbaru, Ayamelum, Anambra West, Anambra East and Awka North\nLocal Government Areas are submerged, with over 700,000 persons in internally\ndisplaced persons (IDP) camps in the State. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The response from government has been pitiable. Rather\nthan set up an urgent, massive and large scale humanitarian rescue mission and\noperation, the government announced timidly and almost irresponsibly, a usual\npath \u2013 donation of relief materials, donation of food and a half-hearted,\nuncertain announcement of providing shelter. As if to sidestep its\nresponsibility to provide immediate and urgent relief, the Federal Government\nthrough a statement on Twitter, announced that it was setting up a team to work\non finding a solution to the problem of flooding in the country within 90 days.\nThe Federal Government announced that the team will be headed by the Minister\nof Water Resources with its membership to include the Ministries of\nEnvironment, Transportation and State Governments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and\nDisaster Management has not been known to be responsive to humanitarian issues\nin the country and has been accused of not even understanding the urgency of\nNigeria\u2019s humanitarian crisis and the action needed in response. However, over\nthe past few days, the Ministry and the National Emergency Management Agency\n(NEMA) commenced distribution of relief materials in the affected areas. These\ninclude food items and materials for construction of temporary shelter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is unclear how soon the floods will recede. There\nis however concern with several people displaced and houses destroyed by the\nfloods and citizens unsettled, whether the Independent National Electoral\nCommission\u2019s (INEC) commencement of Permanent Voter\u2019s Card (PVC) distribution\nwill not be affected. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Across Nigeria, unprecedented and incredible flooding has submerged several lands and territories and wreaked havoc and destruction in its wake. Stretching from Kano and Kogi in the North, right down to Bayelsa and Anambra States in the South, the destruction has been massive. Several communities have been uprooted, houses submerged, properties destroyed, lives lost and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2975"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2982,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions\/2982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}