The Bayelsa State Government and the people of the state on Saturday reacted angrily to the statement credited to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, that the state is not among the 10th most impacted states by the 2022 flood.
They said the data used by the minister to arrive at the conclusion was erroneous.
This is as the United Nations described the flood disaster in Bayelsa State as a crisis of major proportions that deserves attention.
Meanwhile, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, wife of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and Hajiya Fatima Shettima, wife of the vice presidential candidate of the APC, Kashim Shettima, yesterday visited some Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in the state and donated N50 million.
The Bayelsa State Commissioner for Information, Orientation and Strategy, Hon. Ayiba Duba, lambasted the minister, saying her claim was disheartening.
Duba however noted that it was not surprising especially given the slow response from her ministry to the humanitarian crisis that arose from the rampaging flood in the state.
On his part, a former governor of the state and Senator representing Bayelsa West in the National Assembly, Henry Seriake Dickson, condemned in strong terms the unscientific assessment of the devastating effect of the 2022 flood in the state.
Also, a former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Yekini Nabena, faulted Farouq over her comments.
Duba in the statement said the way the minister treated Bayelsa State was so unfortunate that the people were beginning to doubt if they were part of Nigeria.
He added that if the humanitarian minister is sincere, she should tell Nigerians about the relief materials brought to the state and who received them.
He said: “Is it not curious that since the devastation occasioned by the flood occurred a month ago, no representative of the federal government has visited our state to assess the situation?
“The federal government has not shown the minutest of empathy since this monumental devastation hit our state. And we are asking, is Bayelsa State still part of Nigeria? Are we only important when it is time to exploit the resources in our land?
“The slow response to the humanitarian crisis arising from the flood despite the President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive for her to come to the aid of the state is indeed a confirmation of our belief that the federal ministry and its agencies have abandoned their responsibility and are not interested in managing the disaster.”
“How can a state up North, Jigawa, be worst impacted when indeed Bayelsa State has the unfortunate responsibility of receiving the flood water that ran through more than 15 states?
“The data used by the ministry to arrive at the conclusion is suspect and erroneous. How was it arrived at? By sitting in an office and conjuring figures? By the reality on the ground, over 300 communities were impacted by the flood and almost a million people were displaced from their homes, many of them losing their livelihood, in Bayelsa State. And no other state in the federation is so impacted,” he explained.
On his part, Dickson, a two-term governor of the state, while also reacting to recent comments attributed to the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu and Farouq, described the assessment reports attributed to the ministers as insensitive, disrespectful and offensive not only to Bayelsa or the Ijaw nation but the people of all states affected by the flood.
The Water Resources Minister had said that the federal government would not declare a state of emergency in parts of the country ravaged by flooding because it was not overwhelmed by the incident.
The minister had said that the flood had not wreaked enough devastation to warrant a declaration of emergency.
Dickson noted that while communities and indeed the entire state in the case of Bayelsa are submerged with critical infrastructure and people’s sources of livelihood destroyed, the federal government has not organised any meaningful relief exercise for the people.
He condemned the attempts to downplay the crushing effect of the flood on the people and urged the ministers to withdraw the statements and take the necessary steps to support the various state governments and individuals to bring succour to the embattled people
Also, faulting the minister through a statement Friday in Abuja, Nabena said the federal government should be interested in how to quickly prevent the reoccurrence of the phenomenon, adding that the flooding is preventable.
On its part, the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Worldwide has accused Farouq of bias over her comments.
The IYC President, Peter Timothy Igbifa, who spoke on Saturday, described the minister’s statement as unbelievable, irresponsible, insensitive and provocative and called on President Muhammadu Buhari to probe her handling of the disaster across the country.
Igbifa observed that the minister may have relied on armchair statistics she generated from the comfort of her home and not on any field investigations, insisting that Farouq neither visited Bayelsa nor sent a team to assess the reality of flood situations in the state.
He said the minister by her comment had shown that she was more of a disaster than the flood and that she was either playing ethnic bias or dancing on the graves of those, who perished in Bayelsa during the flood.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has described the flood disaster in Bayelsa State as a crisis of major proportions that deserves attention.
The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria and Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr. Matthias Schmale, stated this yesterday when he led a delegation comprising officials of the global body, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Federal Ministry of Water Resources on a courtesy visit on Governor Douye Diri in Government House, Yenagoa.
A statement by the governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Daniel Alabrah, quoted Schmale as likening the Bayelsa situation to the Pakistani floods that attracted global attention.
The UN Coordinator, who had on Friday accompanied Governor Diri on his tour to some flood-impacted communities in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area, said his visit was a response to the letter from the governor and called for attention to address the devastating effect of the flooding.
Schmale commended Governor Diri for his commitment to visiting flooded communities in the state, noting that what he witnessed required both material and moral support.
He also stated that the UN will advocate and mobilize resources for the recovery phase to enable victims to return to their normal lives.
Schmale stressed that it was disheartening that lives, livelihoods and assets had been lost to the flood and called on the federal government and the international community to join hands to support what was left of the immediate response and recovery phases.
His words: “Thanks for allowing the team and I to join you and your team on the visits you are conducting around flood-affected communities. The first thing I will share publicly is that this is a crisis of major proportions.
“What I saw yesterday reminded me of the images I saw of Pakistan a few months ago and the world took note of that. A third of Pakistan, the size of the United Kingdom, was underwater. The images reminded me of that.
“We need to be very clear. This is a crisis of major proportions that deserves everyone’s attention.
“Secondly, my respect to you and your team and, of course, your deputy governor. I think it takes considerable commitment to now be in your third week of visiting flooded communities, which I have not seen anywhere else.
“What I saw yesterday was that you were not only providing material aid to communities but also moral support. I could see the way you and your team were received. There were signs and glimmers of hope around people’s faces and we should not underestimate that. This is still the immediate response phase and outlined some of the immediate needs.
“I think the next would be recovery and we will think through with the United Nations team what we can do to advocate and mobilize resources for the recovery phase as people can get back to their normal lives.”
Schmale noted that the cause of the present disaster was climate change and that it would be the responsibility of the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, to speak emphatically during this year’s Climate Conference in Egypt about the need to invest in mitigation and adaptation measures.
In a related development, Tinubu and Shettima’s wives were welcomed by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, and his wife, Mrs. Alanyingi Sylva, to Yenagoa, the state capital.
Speaking at Oxbow Lake camp, Senator Tinubu emphasised that her visit was strictly on humanitarian grounds to personally empathise with Bayelsans over the devastation brought by the floods and to extend a helping hand.
Apart from drugs and medical equipment, food, wrappers and other relief items, she also donated N50million to the state.
Tinubu explained that the money was for 1,000 affected individuals receiving N50,000 each as a post-flood intervention, saying that the process would be managed by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Sylva.
Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt and Olusegun Samuel in Yenagoa
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