Rainstorm: Kwara distributes palliatives as AbdulRazaq visits victims

Kwara State governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq on Wednesday toured the Ilorin metropolis where last weekend’s rainstorm blew off the rooftops of hundreds of residential and commercial buildings, rendering thousands homeless.

The tour coincided with the delivery of food palliatives to Kwara North senatorial districts, beginning with Jebba town in Moro Local government and Lafiagi in Edu Local government area.

AbdulRazaq began the tour immediately he arrived Ilorin from Abuja where he had gone to inform President Muhammadu Buhari of the havoc wreaked by flooding across the state and Saturday rainstorm in several parts of Ilorin, among other issues.

About 15,000 households across 357 communities were estimated to have been affected by the developments which have destroyed farmlands and human dwellings worth billions of naira.

Accompanied by Senator Ibrahim Yahya Oloriegbe and a few government officials, AbdulRazaq commiserated with the victims and reassured them of government’s solidarity and willingness to assist them within available resources — while relevant federal government agencies are expected to also come through for them.

“I was with the President yesterday and I have passed the message to His Excellency and I am sure that the right things will be done,” AbdulRazaq later told reporters on the sideline of the visit to Okelele area.

“National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) are already collating some data and the response is going on.

“This has happened at the same time with flooding at Jebba, Lafiagi and Patigi local governments, and others.”

The governor, however, said the incidents have again underscored the need for everyone to protect the environment and avoid unlawful erection of structures and dumping of waste on waterways.

“This incident is part of the global ecological problems we are facing. But we also need to check the way we dump garbage in the water, planting of trees and find ways of reducing the impact of ecological problems that we suffer from,” AbdulRazaq said.

“The government is alive to its responsibilities and once the data is collated the right measure of palliatives will be distributed. Right now, relief materials are being distributed in Jebba and other parts of Kwara north senatorial district.

Some of the areas the governor visited on Wednesday included Ita-Ogunbo, Pakata, Oloje, Ode-Alausa, Ojuekun, Okelele, Sakama, Muritala, Alore, Omoda, Magaji Are, Amule, among others.

On Tuesday evening in Jebba, the government began the distribution of food palliatives to poor victims and the vulnerable.

The special adviser and counsellor to the governor Kale Belgore, who led the team, said the government embarked on the exercise to mitigate the sufferings of victims, who are painfully counting their losses to either rainstorm or flood disaster across the state.

He noted the gift items were not targeted at flood casualties alone but also for those classified as poor in the localities.

He said the government harvested the list of beneficiaries from community representatives, including community-based organisations, who had been asked to generate same on account of their knowledge of their areas.

He said the relief materials had been donated to the government by the private sector-led Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) to help the poor and the vulnerable.

The team berthed in Lafiagi and other communities (Edu Local government) on Wednesday and is due in Tsaragi and Patigi on Thursday. The relief materials would also be distributed in Kwara South and Kwara Central before the end of the week.