The Benue State Government on Saturday distributed relief materials to the 2024 flood victims within Makurdi, the capital city.
Items distributed were, 25kg rice and 50kg maize to each of the flood victims, though, a number of 2024 flood victims were not released.
Making the distribution, the Executive Secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency, James Iorpuu, said that the distribution was aimed at cushioning the effect of hunger on the flood victims.
He stated that the state government had forwarded a list of flood victims to the Federal Government through the National Emergency Management Agency.
He explained that the state government deemed it to assist the victims so as to cushion the effect of the flood before NEMA responds.
The SEMA boss said that the agency had fumigated homes of persons affected by the flood, just as he added that it could not carry out the exercise wholistically due to the fact that some people had already returned home.
He said, “We are distributing palliatives to flood victims in Logo 2, Gyado villa, Modern Market, Wadata, Central areas of High level and others.
“Today again the governor has demonstrated his willingness to reach out to the people and that is exactly what we are doing here. This distribution is not for the general public, it is for those affected by floods.
“SEMA within the year, carried out an assessment of those affected (by the flood). The report of that assessment was forwarded to the FG, NEMA in particular. While we are waiting for the intervention of the FG, we started to do this to those affected to cushion the effect of hunger.
“We carried out a house-to-house assessment and we identified those affected and compiled their damages, put up our report and shared our token with them.”
He noted that some persons were affected by floods, but at the point of assessment, they were not available.
“We will reach out to those who were captured in the first phase.
“We carried out the fumigation of homes and areas affected by flooding. While we were doing that, we discovered many people have returned to their homes.
“In some places we couldn’t carry out the fumigation because little children were in those homes. So we set aside a date to fumigate those areas. We do this to prevent anything that could happen, we care for you and the government cares about your health and well-being”, he stated.
In his response, Chairman, Landlords’ Association, Logo II, Thaddeus Ahule, applauded the state government for the gesture.
