BY JOSHUA ERUBAMI

Five years after the Bonga oil spills wreaked huge ecological and environmental damages to about 350 oil bearing communities and satellite villages along the shoreline of Delta and Bayelsa states, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has presented relief materials to some of the affected communities.

The affected communities in Delta State, which were presented with the relief materials yesterday, were drawn from Warri North, Warri South-West and Burutu Local Government Areas of the state. Some of the presented relief items included mattresses, clothings and consumables.

Handing over the relief materials to a team of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) led by the state Commissioner of Bureau for Special Duties, Hon. Chika Ossai, the Zonal Coordinator of NEMA, Mr. James Eze urged the state government and leaders of the affected communities to avoid scrambling the material and ensure that they get to those in dire of need of them.

Eze, who acted in the stead of NEMA Director-General, Sani Sidi, explained that the delivery was formed bulk of the material succor which the Federal Government had promised to give to the affected communities as parts of efforts to ameliorate their plight which resulted from the crude oil spills that happened about half a decade ago.

He assured that other items will be presented to the communities as soon as they are made available to it, adding that NEMA is committed to relieving victims of disaster across the country.

Commending the gesture from the federal agency, Hon. Chika Ossai appealed to the representative of the various local government areas to ensure the effective and efficient distribution of the relief materials which, he said, are difficult to secure.

The Commissioner also called on NEMA to channel more of its relief activities to the state which, according to him, is not only faced with the daunting challenge of oil spillages, but also the incessant cases of flooding in communities along its coastal lines.

Speaking on behalf of others, Chief Otobo Itiemogha, representative of Burutu Local Government Area, lauded the Federal and State Governments for ensuring the delivery of the material about five years after the sorry event occurred.

Itiemogha appealed to government at all levels, oil companies and other relevant agencies to forestall a repeat of such occurrence which threatened the lives and economic stay of over 285,000 at the time it occurred.