Bayelsa Senator Blast Minister, Hajiya Sadiya Over Flood Comments

The All Progressives Congress (APC), chieftain Senator Nimi Barigha Amange has lambasted the claims by the Minister of Humanitarian affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq, on the state of the flood disaster in Bayelsa State.

Recall that the Minister at the 56th session of the State House Press Briefing in Abuja by the Presidential Communication Team said Bayelsa State, which is currently reeling under floods, was not among the 10 most hit States.

Senator Amange described the Minister’s statement as an aberration, lacking the ice of truth and reality, wicked, unfriendly, politically immature and insincere to the plights of the Niger Delta people, especially those in Bayelsa State.

The elder statesman, who is a member of the Bayelsa Elders Forum and Chairman of the Nembe-Se Divisional Chief’s Council, said he was further shocked with the Ministry’s Chief Executive stand on Bayelsa and listing of Jigawa States as worst hit during the 2022 flood disaster.

Senator Amange called on the Presidency to immediately caution the actions of the Minister and call her to retract her statement, pointing out that her unguarded statements and actions remained inhuman and is capable of causing dissafection between the electorate and the faith of APC in the State, especially as election draws closer.

The APC chieftain wondered how the same Minister in her October 2022 report recorded that: “Bayelsa had 58 deaths, 81 injured persons, over 24 thousand affected persons and 26,509 damaged home by the flood disaster” before making a U-turn in her actions.

He also queried the Minister’s comment on how she erected over 44 temporary shelters in 22 States affected by the flood disaster but deliberately excluded Bayelsa State in the distribution of relief materials according to her records.

The Chairman of Nembe-Se Council of Chiefs wondered why Jigawa State was never cut-off from its neighbouring States of Yobe, Bauchi, Kano and Katsina, unlike Bayelsa State that passed through difficulty to receive items as a result of the road calamity along the Ahoada to Patani, Ughele axis of the East-West road completely overwhelmed by the flood disaster.

The Senator pointed out that “till date, a litre of petrol is sold at above 400 naira as against the stipulated price which even rose to 1000 naira per litre at the peak of the flood. Food items and other services are skyrocketing from 1,000 naira for a bucket of the popular stable food (garri) to 2,500 naira among other items.”

Senator Amange tasked the Minister to personally visit Bayelsa Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps as well as tour the State with a canoe to get first hand information before berating the woos of the masses by making unwarranted statements and hate speech against the Niger Delta people “capable of infuriating the people against the peace loving President Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Federal Government.”