HOW Anioma area of Delta State, our people have all sorts of epigrams intended to explain natural phenomena or teach moral lessons. One of such epigrams is the story of ‘Nkenu’ the beautiful bird who went to a native doctor to seek understanding of catastrophe since it had never seen or experienced it.

The native doctor advised Nkenu to go back home and set fire to its nest with all its household inside and then return to tell him about the experience. As the story goes, Nkenu went home and set fire to its nest and watched it destroy its offsprings and all that they had laboured for in life.

By the time the fire died, Nkenu looked for its home and met only ashes and then comprehension set in. It returned to the native doctor who asked it with raised eyebrows, “well?”.  Completely dumbfounded, all Nkenu could do was stare at the native doctor and nod its head.

As a result, Nkenu is the only bird in our cultural cosmos that does not build a nest and keeps nodding its head when it perches anywhere. The moral of the story, of course, is that catastrophe is something that is difficult to describe and can only be fully comprehended if experienced.

With this world view, how can I describe the unfolding flood disaster in our country so that people outside the impacted areas can comprehend it as a catastrophe that it is?

As news of the devastation of the Benue River in Adamawa, Benue, Kogi and Edo states reached us in Abuja, I began to dread what was going to happen to our people further downstream in the Delta.

By the time news came that the Nigerian Immigration Office in Asaba which was more than at least a good two kilometres from the bank of the Niger River had been submerged, I had to pay a visit home. As we flew over AnambraState in our approach to Asaba, I looked out through the window and saw that what used to be pleasant green farmlands of Anambra State had become an apparent marshland of the delta.  For miles and miles, we flew over distant settlements below, where the only things peeping out of the water were the coloured roofing sheets of what were previously dwelling homes.

At Asaba, I got briefings that the communities of OkoAnala, OkoOgbele, OkoAmakom,Abala and others in the south of Oshimili South Local Government Area had been evacuated and were being camped at displaced persons’ camps in St. Patrick’s College Asaba and ICE, Asaba. In AniochaSouth Local Government Area, where I come from, the people of Olodu, where I had gone to commission a primary health care centre built with support from UNICEF some years back, had been evacuated and the health centre with all the other dwellings in the settlement was completely submerged. Similarly, neighbouringEwulu community had been impacted but details were scanty. I planned, therefore, to visit the camp in St. Patrick’s and then swing to Olodu, Ewulu and then to Ashaka in Ndokwa which was the camp for the displaced people of Ndokwa East. From there, I planned to drive down to Isoko area to see the displaced people and then to Tuomo in Bomadi Local Government where I was told I could see the displaced people from Patani and Bomadi local government areas.

On getting to St. Patrick’s I
was advised to deliver the relief materials I brought as they had the logistics capability to distribute these to all the camps. I was further advised that the Asaba-Kwale road, which would have been a 45-five minute drive, was impassable as the flood had taken over large sections of the road. To get to Isokofrom Asaba, therefore, I had to make a long detour to Agbor in the west, then swing through Abraka towards Warri before turning off through Isiokolo in Ethiope East to Afiesere in Ughelli North to take me back to Isoko. This took me more than three hours for what used to be a little over an hour drive on the now impassable Asaba-Kwale-Isoko route.

I managed to reach Ewulu Grammar school where I met the displaced people from that community with their King who narrated how the flood had overtaken the town and destroyed all their fish farms and households and they managed to escape by river craft over what was previously dry land. I saw aged people looking dazed and absolutely lacking in comprehension how their world had been turned upside down.

The whole community was now cramped into classrooms and struggled to preserve their human dignity in the face of these odds. I commiserated with them, listened attentively to their pleas for water supply, mosquito nets and speed boats to return and see if any more property could still be salvaged from the community, after acknowledging the quick response of the State Government to their appeal for evacuation. Indeed, the State Deputy Governor who is in charge of the emergency team had just left the community before my arrival.

At St. Patrick’s, I was taken round to see the displaced persons and shown the efforts of the inter-ministerial committee dealing with the emergency.

I was quite impressed by the coordination of efforts of the State Government and the frontline emergency organisations such as NEMA, Red Cross and so on. I could see the tiredness in the eyes of these officers who I commended and encouraged as they were the first line of hope for the displaced people. They cannot afford to be tired or appear hopeless.

The same situation but worse was unfolding at St. Michael’s Grammar School, Oleh in Isoko South where the mass of humanity was trying to comprehend what was happening. As we were approaching  Isoko, I called one of my associates, an undergraduate student at Delta State University, Oleh Campus to give me a situation report and to meet me at a convenient location so that we could go to the camp together.

As we approached the camp, he received a phone call and I heard him tell his caller that he was in my company and that we were going to the refugee camp. I quickly corrected him, that it was displaced persons’ camp and not refugee camp.

However, semantics apart, it would appear that his was a more accurate description as our people have become refugees in their land. I guess I was really more frightened about that description and was in a state of denial when I sought to correct his description.

By the time, we left St. Michael’s, it was already 5pm and there was no way we could proceed any further to Tuomo. Returning to Asaba through the route we came was really out of the question, so we decided to gamble on the Isoko-Kwale-Asaba road which is being dualised by the State Government. A little after Kwale, we ran into the flood. Only one section of the dualised road was passable even though the water was hitting the bonnet of our SUV.

Further down at Ossissa, I took the photograph of the old man paddling his canoe on the other lane of the road with his bicycle strapped to the canoe. This was for me, the ultimate metaphor of what was happening.

Mr CLEMENT OFUANI a public affairsanalyst, wrote from IAsaba, Delta State.