As the flood water recedes, the Delta State government said its putting adequate measures on the ground for those impacted to return and live normal lives again.
The Secretary to the State Government (GGS) and chairman, Inter-ministerial Flood Management Committee, Chief Patrick Ukah, made the disclosure on Wednesday November 9th 2022 in Asaba, the State capital.
“Now that the water has started receding and we have started planning their exit, by the grace of God we will do whatever it takes to assist them to get back to normal life irrespective of whatever they must have lossed to the flood.
“We thank God that we didn’t have so many deaths and we had a lot of deliveries up to 22 babies in the different camps”, Ukah, revealed.
He said that the loss recorded by the state would have been more catastrophic if not for the proactiveness of the state government.
According to him, it is interesting to note that this year’s flood is far more than what we experienced in 2012 but we give God the glory that the proactiveness of the state government has really helped us in managing this year’s flood.
“We started our sensitization very early and we had stakeholders engagement with traditional rulers, community leadership, school and everybody that we needed to meet.
“Many people responded by moving away from the low planes but as expected some people who hold some traditional beliefs held on to their ancestral homes.
“But through our proactiveness the Ministry of Environment was directed to open up the cannals leading to the Niger River and DESOPADEC was also handy in this regard as they opened up cannals around their own operational areas.
“We were able to set up 4 camps by DESOPADEC and 8 camps by the state government and we had about 21,000 IDPS in those eight camps and over 17000 in areas where DESOPADEC set up their own IDPs camps,” he said.
He said the South and Central Senatorial Districts were most impacted by the flood but thanked God the state government was able to move the affected victims to the IDP camps.
He commended the private sector response to the flood disaster, assuring that the state government would soon publish the names of the private sector donors in a full page advertorial in the newspapers for the state to appreciate them individually.
