Flooding, IDPs avoidable if FG was proactive

Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in next year’s general election, has decried the high number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS) and the level of flooding currently ravaging Benue State and other parts of the country.

Obi was in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, on Thursday, and visited Daudu IDPs camp and victims of flooding at the Rice Mill area. The LP presidential candidate decried the neglect by the Federal Government to tackle insecurity and the country’s perennial flooding.

“The flood was not an accident. The Federal Government was forewarned but did not do the needful to mitigate it. It was meant to happen. It was something the Federal Government could have controlled but they failed to do the needful”.

Obi, who was paddled in the waterways to inspect the affected houses, explained that he decided to suspend his campaign to go around the country and was in Benue to sympathise with the people and government of Benue State.

“Benue State should not be suffering from the flood because the state already has a huge humanitarian crisis. So, I have come to identify with the victims in my own little way.”

He said most of the victims in the IDP camps were farmers, meaning that the flooding could trigger food inflation in the country given the place of Benue State in food production. Obi promised that if elected as president next year, he will bring a permanent solution to the problems of insecurity and flooding as well as pay premium attention to agriculture.

The secretary to the Benue State government, Anthony Ijoho, while conducting Obi around the IDP camp and the flooded areas, appreciated him for coming to identify with the people. Ijoho said he was the only presidential candidate that has visited the victims and got first-hand information about them.

Polycarp Bogo, a flood victim, told Obi that he lost his house, food and property since the incident, pointing out that only the Benue State government has come to their aid with palliatives and thanked Peter Obi for identifying with them in times of their travails.

The paramount ruler of Makurdi Local Government, Vincent Aule, while commending Obi for the visit, called on the Federal Government to dredge the River Benue as a permanent solution to the yearly flooding that renders his subjects homeless.