Flood Hits Bayelsa Communities

Flood has sacked some communities across five local
government areas of Bayelsa State, rendering many families homeless while five
schools were totally submerged.

Also destroyed by the surging flood are economic and cash
crops, farms and privately constructed fish ponds.

The affected local government areas are Sagbama, Ekeremor,
Southern Ijaw, Kolokuma/Opokuma and parts of Yenagoa.

The flood is coming few weeks after the officials of the
state government had claimed during a function at Government House that it has
taken pre-empty measure to curtail flooding in the state.

Although there is no much rain yet in the state this year
but the situation is attributed to the overflowing of its banks by River Niger,
the Nun, and Forcados, including its tributaries like Orashi River

The submerged schools include Community Secondary School,
Obuware, Community Primary School, Indiamazi, in Sagbama, Government
Comprehensive Secondary School and Community Primary School in Tungbo. A
private school, Agua Memorial Nursery/Primary School, at Obuware in Sagbama was
also submerged.

Journalists, who were conducted round the premises of CSS
Sagbama in a canoe, noticed that the water level was more than 1.5 metres high.

The guide, Ogbo Akpoeyi who took reporters round the
premises, said no fewer than 300 families were displaced by the flood in
Sagbama, adding that such flood was last experienced in 1999.

Mr. Akpoeyi called on the company handling the
Sagbama/Ekeremor Road to construct more water outlets in order to reduce the
flood water that had almost submerged the local government.

He called on the various tiers of government to come to the
aid of the community and said, “we need permanent solution to this perennial
problem.”

The owner of a bakery, submerged by the flood, Nurse
Adonkie, whose residence was also affected, said, in tears, that the flood had
destroyed flour mixers and other equipment in the bakery.

The Chairman of Sagbama, Tony Ogullah, said he would conduct
an assessment tour of the LGA to get statistics of number of flood-affected
communities for possible distribution of relief materials.

Mr. Ogullah said that the council would officially write to
the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, and other relevant authorities
for assistance because the situation was beyond the council.

At Tungbo, where about 50 families were displaced, the
people had begun to relocate to the houses of other relations and friends not
yet affected by the flood.