The Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Worldwide has flayed the alleged silence of President Muhammadu Buhari and the federal government to the ongoing floods ravaging the Niger Delta region, especially Bayelsa State and the plights of the citizens.
The IYC President, Peter Timothy Igbifa, also lamented that over 85 per cent of the entire Bayelsa was underwater with about 100 deaths recorded in the last two weeks of the rampaging flood.
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He, however, demanded the deployment of the presidential fleet to the state to rescue trapped victims and mitigate the damage already done by the flood.
Igbifa in a statement on Tuesday lamented that Bayelsa had been cut off from civilisation as the floods took over and washed away significant portions of the only road leading to the state, the East-West road, at both the Rivers and Delta states’ axis.
He described the condition of the people at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in Bayelsa as terrible, crying out that the traumatised victims required urgent medical, food and cash deployment to avert starvation and outbreak of diseases.
He told Buhari that the situation was so overwhelming that all commendable efforts of the state Governor, Senate Douye Diri, to mitigate it had become like a drop of water in the ocean.
Igbifa called on Buhari to order a special urgent humanitarian response to the Bayelsa case and rescue the dying victims of the Bayelsa flood.
Meanwhile, Governor Diri has approved another N450 million to the state Flood Mitigation and Management Taskforce to provide more relief materials to flood victims.
Already, the state Taskforce on Flood Mitigation and Management has ferried foods and other relief materials purchased from Port Harcourt and Lagos to Yenagoa, the state capital via waterways and airways.
Earlier, at the Air Force Heliport at Igbogene in Yenagoa, another set of food items procured by the Bayelsa State government from Lagos, was received by the flood committee through the help of the Nigerian Air Force.
President Buhari had on Monday directed the Minister of Water Resources to lead and coordinate with the Ministries of Environment and Transportation as well as State governments to develop a comprehensive plan of action for preventing flood disaster in Nigeria.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said the President, who regularly received updates on the flooding situation in the country, restated his commitment towards addressing the challenges caused by the disaster in the country.
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