The Managing Director of Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (HYPPADEC) has appealed to the Kogi State government to upscale its awareness and enlightenment campaigns to riverine communities to educate them on strategies to avert or minimise the effects of floods.
Managing Director of the Commission, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq Yelwa, who made the call at the flag-off of distribution of relief materials to flood victims over the weekend in Koton-Karfe said the people needed technical information on the menace.
Yelwa said perennial flooding of the riverine communities with the attendant loss of means of livelihood was assuming an alarming proportion.
He said that since communities were not needing warnings like, “Don’t build on water channels or flood planes, avoid blockage of drainages that can aggravate the effect of flood the best option would be to avail them technical information on his to avert or minimise the natural disaster.
Represented by Alhaji Jimoh Haruna Gabi, Director, Finance and Administration in the Commission, the Managing Director said, “This advice became necessary because of the frequency of this flood in our communities.
“Flood is almost inevitable but we can control it to minimise the level of devastation.
“We have concertized, we sensitize them over the radio and television, we have jingles reawakening their awareness and the state government has to do more sensitising them with adequate technical information.
“So that if or when the floods come, they can do one or two of these efforts so that they can avert or ameliorate the effect. This is the direction HYPPADEC is going now.
“Today, we have brought relief materials that represent a widow’s mite of the commission. It is not as if we can really feed everybody but we have shown kind gestures to everybody.”
The Managing Director however expressed appreciation to Governor Yahaya Bello for always being there for the Commission adding that in all the programmes of HYPPADEC the governor “has never failed us.”
At the Koton-Karfe Centre, 51 household victims from Kogi Local Government Area, Bassa and Lokoja Local Government Areas out of the 113 victims from the 10 affected the three councils received palliatives.
The relief materials include mattresses, rice, millet, beans, noodles, and detergents as well as a medical outreach to address diseases and ailments arising from the effects of the flood, which has consistently devastated the communities in the last two weeks.
