HUNDREDS of victims of the flood disaster in Kogi State are reportedly trooping to Delta State, where they believe Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan is more compassionate in the aftermath of the natural calamity.
Just two days ago, flood victims in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, besieged the streets, accusing the state government of abandoning them for over one week, in spite of huge funds and relief materials collected on their behalf.
The protesters, some of who wore overcast faces, a number dressed in threadbare dresses , others had their babies strapped behind them, alleged that government officials had diverted food items meant for them into private use.
Unknown to the Kogi flood victims, majority of the flood camps in Delta were in the process of winding up and the victims were already returning home to restart life.
Delta State Committee of Flood, headed by Justice Francis Tabai (rtd), ran into some of the victims from Kogi barely 24 hours after its inauguration. The committee members met the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, from Kogi pleading desperately with officials at the Illah camp, Illah in Oshimili North Local Government Area, to allow them in, as they were hungry.
A source told Sunday Vanguard, “The committee noticed over 100 women and children fresh presumably IDPs locked outside the gate of the camp, as officials refused them in on the grounds that the camp was winding up and there were no relief materials for their upkeep”.
The victims told members of the committee that they were from Kogi and needed care, but they were advised to to go to Asaba or any other designated camp close to them for registration, as the Illah camp was, indeed, winding up.
A member of the committee said: “As at when we visited Illah flood victims’ camp, there were only 45 families remaining in the said camp. The development we were told by officials of the camp was quite understandable due to the fact that majority of the said IDPs are farmers and fishermen/women from neighbouring Kogi and Anambra states, who are very eager to return to their trades, especially since now is the peak period of their trade.”
The Delta State Peoples Democratic PDP governorship aspirant in the 2011 general elections, Professor Saliba Mukoro, has donated relief materials worth millions of naira to four rehabilitation camps of flood victims in the state.
The camps which benefited from the gesture included Ughelli , Oleh, Ozoro and Asaba flood rehabilitation camps.
Presenting the relief materials which included bags of rice, cassava flour popular known as garri, bathing soaps, loaves of bread among others, Mukoro, who was represented by Mr Joshua Panama, appealed to corporate organizations, non–governmental organizations as well as well-meaning Nigerians, to assist the victims, stating that government could not do it alone.
While receiving the relief materials, Camp Commandant of St. Micheal College, Oleh, Mrs. Helen Obanedo, expressed gratitude over the gesture which she described as a show of love and concern to fellow Nigerians, adding that it would go a long way to ameliorate the victim’s pains.
