How to describe the level of devastation caused by flood in no fewer than 15 communities in Oguta and Ohaji/Egbema local council areas of Imo State is no doubt a herculean task. It is also true that the degree of harm caused the harmless and hapless citizens and the environment by the rampaging flood is better imagined than seen.

President Goodluck Jonathan was in a melancholic mood last Thursday when he addressed victims of the recent flood disaster in Kogi State at St. Luke Primary School, in Adankolo Area of Lokoja. He had seen first hand the suffering of the victims of the natural disaster who hailed from 457 communities in the state. Four newborn babies who were delivered at the camp had been brought out for the President to see.

Chief Charles Idahosa is a former Commissioner of Information and Orientation in Edo State and now the
Political Adviser to Governor Adams Oshiomhole. He ran against Governor Adams Oshiomhole in the 2007 governorship primary of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) but lost the ticket to the Labour leader.

The broadcast by President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday during which he announced Federal Government’s financial assistance to states across the country ravaged by flood brought a ray of hope to victims of the flood many of whom have lost loved ones, property and their sources of livelihood.

As ugly a human undertaking as any kind of war is, none is as gruesome as a fratricidal conflict and that describes every civil war. Our three year-long experience could not have been devoid of some shameful acts on both sides, soured as it was by ethnic prejudices. But the mature and cultured mind takes it all in and allows the finest touch of the human spirit to mellow it down. That is the quality of the mentality that one would expect in an accomplished writer like Chinua Achebe.