Flood sacks five schools, displaces 350 families in Bayelsa

The flood currently ravaging Northern Nigeria has extended to the South of the country sacking five schools and displacing more than 350 families in Sagbama and Tungbo, both in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

The submerged schools include Community Secondary School, Obuware; and Community Primary School, Indiamazi, in Sagbama. Others are Government Comprehensive Secondary School and Community Primary School in Tungbo. A private school, Agua Memorial Nursery/Primary School, at Obuware in Sagbama was also submerged.

A correspondent, who was taken round the premises of CSS Sagbama in a canoe, reports that the water level was more than 1.5 metres high

The guide, who took reporters round the premises, Ogbo Akpoeyi, said no fewer than 300 families were displaced by the flood in Sagbama, adding that such flood was last experienced in 1999.

Mr. Akpoeyi called on the company handling the Sagbama/Ekeremor Road to construct more water outlets in order to reduce the flood water that had almost submerged the local government.

He called on the various tiers of government to come to the aid of the community and said, “we need permanent solution to this perennial problem.”

The owner of a bakery, submerged by the flood, Nurse Adonkie, whose residence was also affected, said, in tears, that the flood had destroyed flour mixers and other equipment in the bakery.

When contacted, the Chairman of Sagbama, Tony Ogullah, said he would conduct an assessment tour of the LGA to get statistics of number of flood-affected communities for possible distribution of relief materials.

Mr. Ogullah said that the council would officially write to the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, and other relevant authorities for assistance because the situation was beyond the council.

At Tungbo, where about 50 families were displaced, the people had begun to relocate to the houses of other relations and friends not yet affected by the flood.

Several Bayelsa communities, on the banks of the River Nun and River Forcados, are under threat by the ravaging flood.

Some locals said the first time such high flood was recorded in the area was in 1969 during the civil war.

NAN