NASEMA: 60 Communities Submerged by Flood in Nasarawa

Igbawase Ukumba

Nasarawa State Emergency Management Agency (NASEMA) yesterday said about 60 communities had been submerged by the current flood ravaging some parts of the country.

NASEMA Executive Secretary, Allu Maga, disclosed this to THISDAY during an interaction in his office in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital.

This was even as he added that despite the devastating nature of the flooding effect in the affected communities, no life was lost but several thousands of people were displaced, while valuables worth millions of naira were destroyed.

The NASEMA chief said affected communities were located by the river bank of Benue in Awe, Keana, Doma, Nasarawa and Toto local government areas of Nasarawa State.

According to him, “Sixty communities are all submerged.

The painful thing is that the people are not ready to leave, even as their communities are submerged. They insisted on this kind of archaic complaint that it is their ancestral land hence they are not ready to relocate.

“When we sensed that this flood would take place, we went to all the communities in August and September and met with all the traditional rulers, appointed and elected representatives of the communities so as to sensitising them to the effect of the flood.”

He explained that the idea of the sensitisation was to evacuate the communities’ inhabitants to safer places so that government could bring palliative measures to cushion their plights, thereafter to be taken back to their abodes when the situation improved.

He, however, said “government has directed the purchase of additional relief materials to support the existing ones,” adding that “Nasarawa State is a disaster-prone area; we always have one problem or the other in the state.”