By; Mohammed Kawu, Bauchi
At least 24 lives were reportedly perished in the recent floods that devastated sixteen out of the twenty Local Government Areas of the Bauchi state, as the disaster also swept away a number of 11, 183 livestock across the areas.
The Chairman of the inter-ministerial committee saddled with the responsibility of assessing the extent of damage caused by the floods, Hon. Aminu Hammayo put the total loss monetarily at N22, 319, 480, 000.
He explained that the assessment to flood losses was sequel to the resolution of the National Council of State for states to submit to it reports of damages to the council whereas the state carried out 80 percent of the assessment at the time of report submission last Monday.
According to Hammayo, who is also the state commissioner of budget, planning and Multi-lateral, the directive for the assessment of flood damages across the 36 member-states of the National Economic Council followed the resolution at its 144th meeting penultimate Wednesday in Abuja where the issue was discussed.
“The council resolved that every member-state should go back and do an assessment of the extent to which it has suffered damages, and states were expected to provide report from their domains lastest by Monday, 9th September, 2024”, Hammayo said.
“A state inter-ministerial committee comprising myself, commissioners for environment, humanitarian affairs; ministries education, Health, works, and the secretary to the state government that worked for five consecutive days to look at what happen, and we have been able to come up with the exent of damages in Bauchi”
Shedding more light on the report of the committee, an inter-ministerial committee member and commissioner for humanitarian affairs, Hon. Hajara Wanka said that the floods devastation has adjudged Bauchi to be the most severely floods hit where a number of 11, 183 livestock were also carried away by water
Hon. Hajara Wanka said, “In Bauchi the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in collaboration with SEMA, we did a scale down with special focus to the most anticipated eleven local government areas, but sadly as we are counting now, and the rain is still ongoing, we have severe floods in sixteen LGAs of the state”.
Hajara who explained that 80 percent of the job assessment has been done, enumerated the outcome of their committee’s report with the recording of 122, 330 houses in the state physically affected.
The commissioner further disclosed, “163 persons were injured in floods devastation, 12 major roads were cutoff, mostly from the northern parts of the state, 60 culverts were washed away, 52, 035 houses destroyed, and 178 electric poles collapsed.
“We are still working with the state ministries of health and education to ascertain the level of damage caused to schools infrastructure and health facilities, even though the catastrophe is still unquantifiable as the rains continues in the season”
Hajara recalled that so far five ministers of the federal government came to Bauchi purposely for the floods disaster, with three of them travelled to Katagum zone of the state where the devastation mostly occured where they supervised and sympathized with the victims.
She added, “Even the previous week, the director general of the national emergency management agency (NEMA) and minister of water resources were supposed to be in Bauchi, so we have been putting heads together with the federal government, not only to ascertain the damages, but also to come up with lasting solutions”.
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