By Mohammed Abubakar Dutse
With the death toll from this year’s flooding rising on daily basis, the Jigawa state governor, Umar Namadi has appealed to the federal government to urgently come to the aid of their state to avoid the repeat of the 2022 experience of the state.
Describing the state as “one of the frontline states of the 2024 flooding exercise, the feared that the the 2024 flooding would be far worse than the 2022 experience which led to the loss of thousands and properties worth millions of naira as well as washing away thousands of houses and several hundreds of hectares of farmlands destroyed.
The governor made the observations, during a courtesy call on him by the Chairman and members of the the House of Representatives Committee on Ecological Funds. The committee members were in the state to have a first hand assessment of the ecological situation in the state.
Giving a comparative analysis of this year’s flooding situation with the previous one, the governor maintained that this year’s would by far wreck more damages, when considered against the fact that, the rainy season was just beginning and had yet to reach its zenith.
The latest casualy figure from the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) as at Tuesday indicated that so far over 30 persons have lost their lives to the flooding, with close to 94,000 displaced by the flooding.
Similarly the governor confirmed that so far flooding had been experienced in 14 out of the 27 local government areas across the state. He added that so far 40,000 people have so been affected, with 8,000 people in the internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps.
Similarly, 7000 houses have so far been affected with 6, 500 farmlands washed in 135 communities.
According to him, “The rain has not even started seriously yet, what is happening is a perrenial rainfall. The water in the dams has not been released yet and we know that once that is done, only God knows what is going to happen because the dams will overflow their banks and God knows.”
He added that out of the 14 LGAs affected, government has been able to reach nine with the expectation that the remaining LGAs would be reached in no sooner than later.
Earlier the Chairman of the Committee, Dr. Aminu Sani Jaji had told the governor they were in the state to carry out the on the spot assessment of the flood situation in the state state to enable the lawmakers make recommendations to the federal government on how to mitigate the disaster.
Describing Jigawa as strategically placed in the north western part of the country the lawmaker however, commended the governor for his prompt response to disaster situation in the state and pledged the determination of the committee members to work with the relevant government agencies towards ensuring that the 2022 experience in the state would be averted.
Jaji, however, called on all stakeholders to ensure that resources allocated to mitigate emergencies are properly deployed, warning that lawmakers would ensure that any underhand deals on the part of any officials would be met with appropriate sanctions.
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