Governor Zulum addressing flood victims in Maiduguri
By SADIQ ABUBAKAR, Maiduguri –
Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, visited the Bakassi IDPs Camp in Maiduguri on Wednesday to distribute N10,000 cash to each male and female household affected by the recent flood disaster in Maiduguri.
The flood, which has affected over 1 million people and displaced 100,000 families, has ravaged more than a third of the city.
Governor Zulum stated that the state government has received N3 billion in flood intervention funds from the Federal Government and is using part of the funds to provide immediate support to the affected communities. The government has relocated those affected to various camps and is providing support.
He said: “We are here this morning basically to distribute N10,000 cash to each victims of the flood, both male and female household victims of the flood.”.
“More than 1/3 of the city has been ravaged by the flood which constitute about 1 million people that are affected and over 100, 000 families/households displaced..
“Luckily for us, we just received N3 billion flood intervention funds from Federal Government. So we are using part of this fund to provide immediate support to the communities affected by the flood.
“We have relocated those affected into different camps and already providing support. We will come up with long term and short term measures as soon as we take the data of the people affected”, he said.
The Governor attributed the flooding to heavy rainfall, possibly due to climate change, and the fact that the waterways are blocked due to buildings constructed on them.
He noted that the flooding is unprecedented in 50 years and was exacerbated by the release of water from Cameroon and other countries. The government plans to reconstruct the dam and take long-term and short-term measures to address the issue.
“The water this year exceeded the capacity of the dam, we had a very heavy rainfall and it may be due to climate change.”
“What we need to do now is to reconstruct the dam. Also most of the water way are blocked because people build houses on the water way thereby reducing the width of the canals.
“This is one of the major reasons of this problem”. “We have not seen this kind of flooding in about 50 years There was also release of water from Cameroon and other countries and this compounded the problem”, Zulum added
