By; MOHAMMED KAWU, Bauchi
Sequel to the resolution of the National Council of State for states to submit to it reports of flood damages assessment, Bauchi met the Monday deadline submission with an extent losses of N22,319, 480,000 to the council when it carried out 80 percent of the assessment across its 16 Local Government Areas of the state.
According to the chairman of the state inter-ministerial committee set up to assess the extent of damage caused by the floods, Hon. Aminu Hammayo recalled that at the 144th meeting of the National Economic Council last week Wednesday, flooding in the country was one of the issues 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 today 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’.
Shedding more light on the report of the committee, as member and commissioner for humanitarian affairs, Hon. Hajara Wanka said that the floods devastation has caused the loss of 24 lives, with a number of 11, 183 livestock also perished.
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 per cent of the job assessment has been done, enumerated the outcome of their committee’s report with the recording of 24 loss of lives across the sixteen affected local government, of the twenty local government areas of the state.
The commissioner further disclosed, “163 persons were injured in floods devastation, 122, 330 households affected, 12 major roads were cutoff, mostly from the northern parts of the state, 60 culverts were washed away, 52, 035 houses destroyed, 178 electric poles collapsed, while 11, 183 livestock were loss.
“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, but at present we have recorded a total loss for the whole state as a result of 2024 floods put at N22, 319, 480, 000”.
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 last week, the director general of the national emergency management agency (NEMA) was supposed to be in Bauchi, with the honourable minister of water resources, so we have been putting heads together with the federal government, not only to ascertain the damages, but to come up with lasting solutions.
