By David Odama – Lafia

Nasarawa  State Emergency Management Agency (NASEMA) Thursday said about 60 communities had been submerged by the flood that ravaged some parts of the state.

The Executive Secretary, Allu Maga, disclosed this at an interactive session with journalists in his office in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital.

Maga added that despite the devastating effect of the flood in the affected communities, no life was lost but added that thousands of people were displaced, while valuables worth millions of naira were destroyed.

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According to him,  affected communities were those along the riverbank of Benue in Awe, Keana, Doma, Nasarawa and Toto local government areas of Nasarawa State.

“Sixty communities were submerged. The painful thing is that the people are not ready to leave, even as their communities are submerged. They insisted on this kind of archaic complaint that it is their ancestral land hence they are not ready to relocate.

“When we sensed that this flood would take place, we went to all the communities in August and September and met with all the traditional rulers, appointed and elected representatives of the communities  to  help in sensitising their people on the  effect of the flood.”

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” The idea of the sensitisation was to evacuate the communities’ inhabitants to safer places so that the government could bring palliative measures to cushion their plights, thereafter to be taken back to their abodes when the situation improved.

According to him, the government has directed the purchase of additional relief materials to support the existing ones, Nasarawa State is a disaster-prone area; we always have one problem or the other in the state.”

vanguard