Windstorm: Nasarawa Government set to distribute relief materials to over 1000 households

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Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State

By our reporter, Lafia

Nasarawa State Government says it would distribute foods items and other materials to over 1000 households affected by the recent windstorm across four local government areas of the state to cushion their hardship.

The State Commissioner for Special Duties on Humanitarian Social Services and Non-Governmental Organisations, Princess Margaret Elayo disclosed this in an interview with Apex News Exclusive on Friday in Lafia.

According to her, the affected councils are; Keana, Awe, Doma and Keffi where several households, schools churches, mosques and sources of water destroyed by the windstorm.

“First of all, my heart goes out to the people that are affected by the windstorm, we have couple of local government areas that have been affected by this.

“As we are taking diary of our needs assessment in Keana we got the calls that Awe, Doma and Keffi had similar experience where several households were affected.

“You know, we can not ascertain the numbers at one time, but as at yesterday and today the numbers we have been able to captured in Keana over 600 homes, for Awe we have over 50, in Keffi, we have 160, at Agbashi 107 home have been destroyed,” she said.

She explained that the state government had begun the needs assessment of the affected communities with a view to sending relief materials to cushion the impact of the disaster on the affected households.

The commissioner said Governor Abdullahi Sule had mandated his deputy, Dr Emmanuel Akabe to carry out the needs assessment of the affected LGAs in order to put necessary things in place to cushion the hardship of the victims.

“But the humanitarian aspect of it is what myself and my team went down to the communities to be able to see what we can channel in immediately.

“We were able to get to the communities and meet with the people, shared in their experiences, let them speak to us exactly what happened because they were involved, it was like a shock to everyone of them because it wasn’t expected, ” she said.

Princess Elayo said her ministry in collaboration with the State Emergency Management Agency was working together to come up with a robust plan towards providing temporary shelter for the displaced persons.

“We just ordered a truck load of water to be taken to the affected communities, and we are planning some food items to be taken to them, some of them were able to pair up with some of their family members.

“The government is not relenting, we are on top of the game, we are doing what we need to do for all the citizens at least to reduce the negative impacts of this unfortunate incident.

“But their homes are gone, the state cannot handle this alone immediately, we are calling on Federal government, National Emergency Management Agency and other relevant agencies and NGOs to come to our aid at this critical time,” she said.

The commissioner said the windstorm was a warning to every communities that climate change was real and the need to brace up.

She said her ministry would come up with surveillance mechanism where the communities would give first hand information about changes in weather conditions.