About 10 local government areas in Kogi state are now under flood water as the surge continues from River Niger, the state governor, Yahaya Bello, has said.
The governor was at the presidential villa, Abuja on Monday to brief Presidential Muhammadu Buhari on the matter and ask for more federal assistance, saying that his government has now set up nine Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to shelter victims.
Fielding questions from journalists after the meeting, he commended the Federal Government for its intervention so far even though he noted that the level of disaster required much more relief materials from the government.
He said: “As usual, I came to brief Mr President on situation report and the happenings in my state periodically. I am sure you are all aware of the flood problem that is happening all over the country and Kogi is worst hit being the confluence state, confluence of the two rivers.
“So, we are worst hit and I needed to come and present the report to him myself. Even though I sincerely appreciate Mr President for deploying relevant agencies like NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency) and all the security agencies to come to our aid.
“As I speak to you, NEMA is on their way to Lokoja to access the level of damage and we received substantial amount of relief materials so far, it is not enough. I need to present the report to him as well and also to tell him about the security of the state and how we are doing.
“We are doing very well and I thank all the security agencies who have been assisting us to make sure we curb insecurity in the state. So, these are the issues that brought me to come and explain to Mr President.”
The governor recalled that the flooding of 2012, saying that of all the states affected then, Kogi was the worst.
According to him, “We experience this periodically. 2012, we were worst hit, we are praying that the situation will not exceed that this year.
“We are normally proactive to sensitize the people and evacuate them to high ground. We have created over 33 camps in Kogi State. As I speak with you, between nine to ten local governments are underwater, you can imagine the pressure on our resources.
“So, we are doing our best in collaboration with federal agencies and security agencies to make sure that we evacuate them to high grounds, IDP camps and provide security to them and relief materials including medicals.”
Also speaking on the forthcoming general election, the governor assured that President Buhari will fly the All Progressive Congress (APC) flag in 2019, saying that he will receive overwhelming votes in Kogi state.
Responding to a question on the possibility of APC losing the election, he said: “this is the era where there’s a lot of hopes even if it is false. People build their castle in the air. You can see that Mr President is good to go. I want to assure Nigerians that the vote for Mr President in 2019 is going to double that of 2015.
“In my own state, I can assure you, take my words, we are going to have all the twenty-five House of Assembly members, all the nine House of Representatives members and all the three Senators for APC in this 2019 election.
“We did it in all other states and in my state you can see in the last by-election the gap when the election was conducted in 2015 between the APC winner and the PDP was just about 7,000, but in this last by-election, we doubled the gap, so that is an indication.
“Two, by my style of leadership in Kogi State, we met Kogi State House of Assembly, APC in minority, we have overwhelming majority today, we have less than 85,000 registered in Kogi State for APC, as at today we have over a million members in the state.
“Yesterday (Sunday) we had a decamping rally where SDP state chapter collapsed, ADP, ADC, PDP majority of them including Kwamkwasiya, they burnt their cap yesterday, they drove away the SDP horse yesterday. So that is the movement and it is across the nation not only in Kogi state.”
Credit: Tribune
