By Gloria Ugwuoke
According to Anaedoonline, with about 600 persons dead, Over 2 million people displaced, and more than 200,000 homes destroyed, this particular flood is the worst Nigeria has seen in decades.
The Recent flooding in Nigeria has been described as an “overwhelming” disaster by the minister for humanitarian affairs and disaster management, Sadiya Umar, Farouk.
She said this is due to the fact that many states were not properly prepared for the flood despite warnings. Unfortunately, Anambra State happens to be one among the unprepared states.
Soludo Wants A National Solution To Flooding
The first week of October was traumatic to over 300 communities in Anambra living within the borders of the Niger river. Especially, Anambra East, Anambra West, Ayamelum, Ogbaru, as well as parts of Ihiala and Ekwusigo local governments as Floods swept through their communities.
It’s almost a month since Nigeria experienced her most devastating flood and this is the state of life in Ogbaru, Anambra. Ogbaru is a local government area in Anambra State, south-central Nigeria. Known for its production and sales of agricultural products.
Live from the port city of Atani, the local government headquarters of Ogbaru, Anambra State, Anaedo TV brings you full details of what is left of the community and how the survivors are going about their new reality.
From a normal life, to becoming internally displaced, to the lose of lives, properties and loved ones, the people of ogbaru now live on roads, cars, bustops and open pile of blocks to avoid getting drowned at night.
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Response from the residents is one of grief and helplessness as most of them cried out for help from individuals and government.
While some of them struggle with Lack of clean water and assess to electricity, the rest fight off snakes and mosquitoes to stay alive.
Despite being a high risk area, no help has come to this part of the community from the Nigerian government. Instead, individuals and natives of the community in Diaspora have sent some food and relief materials to parts of Ogbaru.
According to the record obtained from the State Emergency Management Agency on the affected communities in Anambra, Ogbaru has 286,000 displaced persons, Anambra West has 237,000, Anambra East has 103,000, Awka North has 10,345 victims, while Anyamelum has 9,240 flood cases with 5,468 displaced persons.
Obi Expresses Sympathy For Flood Victims And Requests FG Intervention
According to an official from SEMA, Mr Chukwudi Onyejiofor, currently, over 700,000 persons are all camped at various internally displaced persons camps across the state, a figure, he said, would shoot up to one million in a few days as over 500 victims join the camps daily.
Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State has asked the Nigerian government to be more “forceful” in their response to the raging flood and has called for a “national conversation” about flooding to prevent a recurrence.
However, the Nigerian government has blamed the flooding on heavy downpours and climate change. The ministry of disaster management urged the state and local governments authorities to handle the situation.
Earlier this month, Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency warned of catastrophic flooding for states located along the courses of the Niger and Benue rivers, noting that three of Nigeria’s overfilled reservoirs were expected to overflow. NEMA said the release of excess water from the lagdo dam in neighboring Cameroon had contributed to the flooding. But experts insist that poor planning and infrastructure contributed more to the floods.
Red Cross Appeals For Assistance As 28 Rivers Communities Flood
The World Food Programme and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said last month that Nigeria was among six countries facing a high risk of catastrophic levels of hunger. Reports revealed that Anambra unlike other states, had over 3,325sq km of its 4,885sq km land mass underwater, indicating that over 60 per cent of the state’s landmass is currently submerged. Food shortage looms heavily as about 60,000 farmers have been affected.
As the floods ravaged the country, The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Mr Peter Obi has suspended his 2023 campaign and called on other presidential candidates to do same.
He made the announcement on Wednesday at a courtesy visit to the governor of Benue state, Samuel Ortom.
In his words “I am also calling other presidential candidates to stop campaigning and see what we can do. If we can buy our forms for millions of naira, we should have some little thing to go now that people are suffering and at least show sympathy with them and then we can continue.”
Tragedy As Flood Kill 36, 470 Displaced
Nigeria’s meteorological agency has warned that the flooding could continue until the end of November in some states in the south of the country, including Anambra, Delta, Rivers, Cross River and Bayelsa
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