Flood: Atiku Writes Buhari’s Govt On Situation In Bayelsa

Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, has written to President Muhammadu Buhari about the flooding that has ravaged Bayelsa State and other parts of the country.

According to reports, the former Vice President visited the South-South state on Tuesday to express his condolences to state residents affected by the flood disaster.

Many houses, properties, and lives have been washed away in Bayelsa, as well as other parts of the country, in recent weeks as a result of heavy rains.

Atiku, who was in Yenagoa, the state capital, yesterday, described the scenes as “horrible.”

What I witnessed in Bayelsa is as disheartening as reports from other places; it is a story of human trauma under the spell of nature’s fury. Public infrastructure like roads and power lines have been swept away in a flash, and facilities like hospitals and schools are destroyed and remain unavailable, the presidential hopeful said.

In a lengthy comment on the event, Atiku urged President Buhari’s administration to immediately establish an independent Flood Disaster Relief Fund to assist flood victims.

According to him, the initiative is a national emergency relief fund in the same vein as the one established during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And to that end, I wish to call on my friends and associates in the corporate world and in private capacities to join in this cause.

I also wish to call on governments at all levels to immediately activate measures to forestall the food shortages and further increment in the already high cost of food that is bound to arise from the loss of hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmlands, Atiku said.

He added:

There is no doubt that a large number of the victims are farmers. I also wish to make a plea for the establishment of a temporary fund for farmers to ameliorate their losses and give them capital for next year’s planting season.

Part of the plans to lessen the burden on Nigerians is for the federal government to consider increased releases of grains from our Strategic Food Reserves and review our import policies to allow for the interim importation of food to make up for shortfalls in food production. And to forestall the recurrences of such devastating levels of flooding, the government must build the critical infrastructure required to contain excess water along the banks of the Rivers Niger and Benue.