Flood washes away 5 bridges in Kebbi State — SEMA

By OLANREWAJU LAWAL, Birnin Kebbi

The Chairman of  Kebbi State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA),Alhaji Sani Dododo has said that five bridges located in different parts of the state had so far been cut off by the flood.

Dododo who stated this during a meeting with stakeholders held at the Cabinet Office in Birnin Kebbi ,disclosed that the incidents had cut off many communities from the state capital.

Dododo who described the situation as worrisome said that the essence of the meeting was to intimate the stakeholders on the impending flood threat facing the state.

According to him, “because of this, I invited the Commissioner for Works so that he can play his role in providing solution to bridge collapse.

“For example, people of Jabbeji have no access to the state capital, Bagudo, and Dododo communities too cannot transport themselves to the state capital because five bridges have been washed away.

“Therefore, there is need for urgent intervention, everybody has a role to play and every little contribution is welcome. For example, the military, if you can go and build an emergency bridge for us we will highly appreciate it.

Dododo who said that the SEMA have enough food and clothes in stock stressed that the Federal Government had allocated 125 trailers of food to the state as COVID-19 palliative.

He said that so far the state had received over 70 trailers which, according to him, will be used to assist displaced flood victims.

Also, the General Manager, Kebbi State Urban Development Authority (KUDA), Alhaji Aliyu Umar, called for permanent relocation of people living in flood-prone areas instead of a temporary solution.

Umar, who was represented by the Director, Town Planning, Alhaji Abubakar Abubakar, expressed concern that after every rainy season, flood victims usually returned to their initial settlement forgetting their past experience.

“Some years back, four villages on the way to Argungu were permanently relocated, government secured a piece of land, paid compensation, and resettled the people there.

“As I am talking now, those villages have gradually expanded and nobody is willing to go back to their former settlement because they are safer and more comfortable,” Umar said.

He attributed the recurrence of flood in the state to government’s negligence concerning layout, adding that government allowed farmland owners to design and sell lands at will. (Saturday Sun)