Flood: Group heads to court over relief funds

The centre has threatened to file a suit against the state government if it does not explain why it has failed to disburse the funds since last year.The Mallam Abdullazees Bako-led group had written the Executive Secretary of Nasarawa State Emergency Management Agency (NASEMA) seeking information on the management of the funds. The group hinged […]

The centre has threatened to file a suit against the state government if it does not explain why it has failed to disburse the funds since last year.
The Mallam Abdullazees Bako-led group had written the Executive Secretary of Nasarawa State Emergency Management Agency (NASEMA) seeking information on the management of the funds. The group hinged their demand on the Freedom of Information Act.
The group in the letter demanded answers to five questions including: a list of all the flood victims, and their locations; the breakdown of the N400 million, if expended, in whole or part; details on how the state utilized the funds; how much was allocated to each victim; and detailed information about any relief including building materials supplied to the victims.
Bako, the group leader told Daily Trust that he had not received any information from the government yet, and threatened to proceed to court. “We are going to court straight away. It is obvious the government only sent the list of the victims to attract the funds for use in the next elections. We cannot allow the people’s misfortune to fetch campaign money into some private pockets,” Bako said.
Dr. Abdullahi Idris, Head of NASEMA, confirmed his agency received the letter from the justice-based organization, just as he confirmed threats from the organization to go to court against government. He said he briefed the deputy governor, Dameshi Barau Luka, on the letter as well as the threats of court case, but was yet to receive any directive to furnish the body with the needed information.
But as the group perfect their documents for the court, Tanimu Lemu, head of a family of three wives and 13 children as well as other dependants had returned to his house in Guto, one of the most devastated areas during the 2012 flood, with his family.
Like Lemu, Hadiza Adamu, a mother of five has also returned to her home in Umaisha which sits on the banks of Benue River, which was overran by storm waters from the neighbouring Cameroon during the last flood incident.
A total of 95,538 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), about 8,000 from Guto alone, were recorded to have been displaced in about 200 communities of nine local government areas across the state. Over 2,000 hectares of cultivated farmland were also washed off in the floods which swamped thousands of houses.
Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura had said the state lost over N20 billion as a result of the disaster.
Much of the communities affected by the flood were located about 15 kilometres of the Benue River bank, which swelled and overflowed the banks because of excess water released from the neighbouring Cameroons.
But the displaced persons emptied the camps and returned to the same flooded areas, just as the waters began to recede.
The displaced persons were, earlier in the year, handed between N2,000 and N3,000 per family in few communities, sparking wide protests from the victims who insisted that the committee should explain how they arrived at the decision that families needed such paltry sums for relief.
This is just as Dr. Mustapha Bello, Head of the Task Force on the Mitigation of the Impact of Flood Disasters, told Daily Trust recently that “we are also worried over what has happened,” adding that “we are still working on that particular project.” He refused to make explanations, however.