Flooding: Prioritise disaster relief, emergency assistance, IHRC urges

On the heels of the flooding experience ravaging most parts of the country, the International Human Rights Commission (IHRC) at the weekend stressed the need for Federal, States and Local Governments to prioritise the provision of relief and emergency assistance to victims.

It said the 2022 flooding experienced in the country is intense and has been confirmed as Nigeria’s worst flood disaster in a decade, even as it is increasingly becoming worse than those of 2012 and 2018.

The Commission’s Ambassador at Large and Head of Diplomatic Mission Nigeria, Dr Duru Hezekiah, stated this after a participatory and damage assessment tour in Kogi State aimed at enhancing national and global efforts to mitigate flooding effects in Nigeria.

According to him, the rising floodwaters have recorded human and material losses with several homes submerged by floods in Kogi, Anambra, Bauchi, the Gombe States among others.

“Apart from submerging houses and farmlands, critical infrastructures such as schools, healthcare centres, police stations, banks, offices were also affected; a situation that made the state governments shut down schools in the riverine areas,” he said

To this end, he stressed the need for Federal, State and Local governments to share the responsibility of protecting their citizens from disasters, and help them on the road to recovery.

“In these cases, however, the disaster requires a more comprehensive approach, disaster relief, and emergency assistance void of political, ethnic, or religious discrimination to effectively support state and local governments and their citizens,” he noted.

While expressing dissatisfaction over prolonged interventions by the government to find a lasting solution to the seasonal flooding in Nigeria, Duru asserted that amidst the overwhelming disaster, it is inhumane and deteriorating for politicians vying for different political offices in the 2023 general elections to disregard the hardship imposed on citizens by the rising floodwaters while focusing only on their political activities.

“It is creatively challenging to hear politicians inducing how to win the forthcoming elections and not telling us how to win a ravaging pandemic that perhaps attracts a declaration of a national state of disaster

“We, therefore, have a serious and humanitarian tragedy on our hands that urgently requires our collective help in mitigating the effects by providing aid to individuals and households; aid to repair or replace disaster-damaged public facilities like schools and healthcare facilities, and hazard mitigation assistance for funding measures designed to reduce future losses to public and private property.

“A coming together of people to address a course that has respect for the fundamental human rights of Nigerians is more important now than any political campaign,” he added.

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