By Sam Eyoboka
SOKOTO—NATIONAL President of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, Monday, commiserated with the government and people of Sokoto and Kebbi states over the devastating flood that sacked over 50 towns in the two states and displaced thousands of persons.

At least 50 persons were reported dead and over 35,000 others displaced as 15 of the 23 affected villages were submerged just as thousands of houses and farmlands were washed away by floods in Goronyo Local Government Area of Sokoto and Kebbi states.

Speaking during a courtesy visit to some displaced victims of the flood disaster in Sokoto State, the CAN president who was accompanied by his deputy, Archbishop Daniel Okoh and General Secretary, Engineer Samuel Salifu, expressed shock that floods of such magnitude could happen in that part of the country which is not a coastal region.

Oritsejafor, who donated relief materials including food items and clothes worth millions of naira in addition to N2 million cash each to affected victims in the two states, also used the occasion to appeal to governments in the country to come to the aid of the victims, who he said, were yet to leave normal lives.

Said he: “I had come on behalf of the Christian Community in Nigeria to commiserate with you people and pray to God to give the state government and the people of the affected communities to fortitude to bear the irreparable of loss of lives, houses and farm lands.”

He also called on governments across the country and persons of goodwill to come to demonstrate Godly qualities at this moment of grief and be their brothers’ keepers and come to the aid of the displaced persons, seeing that “Sokoto and Kebbi states alone do not have the capacity to contain the effects of the disaster.”

The CAN president who had earlier donated N10,000 each to the victims of the October 1 bomb blasts in Abuja, also urged security authorities to be alive to their responsibilities because of growing security concerns in different parts of the country.

“As we approach another election year, government and security agents across the country must do everything to ensure peace in every part of the country,” he said, stressing that recent reports in the Media indicate that weapons are being imported apparently by desperate politicians who would stop at nothing to actualise their dreams.

In a year of jubilee, he argued, the people of Nigeria having being delivered by God must be given an opportunity to enjoy their God-given abundant resources across the length and breadth of the country.

He also used the occasion to appeal to Nigerians as a whole to eschew bitterness and in harmony in peace with one another despite religious and ethnic differences, stating “God who created all of us in one country knew why he did that.

He had his reasons for putting us together; that we may forge ahead together despite our ethnic and religious diversities.”