By Tope Omogbolagun
After about a week since Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, has been in the news for being ravaged by flood, the senators representing Kogi have yet to raise the issue on the floor of the upper chamber.
The Kogi senators are: Senator Oseni Yakubu ( APC Kogi Central); Senator Smart Adeyemi (APC Kogi West); and Jibrin Echocho (APC Kogi East).
Various videos had emerged online showing the devastating condition of the state as houses were seen submerged in water and some totally swamped as a result of the flood. For the past 78 hours, the state had trended online for this reason.
Some of the areas affected by the flood include: Lokoja, Kogi-Koto, Ajaokuta, Ofu, Igalamela-Odolu, Bassa, Idah, Bassa, Kotonkarffe, Ajaokuta, Ibaji, Ofu and Omala, among others, including the Kogi State House of Assembly on Ganja road in the city capital.
During the plenary, hopes were high in anticipation that one of the Kogi senators would speak for their constituencies like senators in Jigawa, Niger, Benue States and the rest did at the last seating.
To the surprise of many, none of them raised a motion relating to the disaster in the state, except Senator Jibrin Isah who stood up to support the motion moved by the senator representing Bayelsa East, Degi-Eremienyo Biobarakuma, who moved a motion to save coastline communities that have been dealt with by erosion in Bayelsa State.
Related News
Kogi flood kills toddler, five others
Kogi flood submerges 600 hectares of rice farmland
Vacate flood prone areas, NEMA tells Kogi residents
The motion, which was titled, ‘Urgent need to reclaim and protect shorelines at Anyama, Tiwon-Brass, Odioama, and Sangana communities devasted by coastal erosion in Bayelsa East Senatorial District of Bayelsa State’, was raised as a cry to call on the National Emergency Management Agency and other agencies to help the people of Bayelsa.
The Kogi East senator still did not mention anything about his constituency, even when other senators like Senator Chukwu Utazi (Enugu North) spoke for farmers and other people who were affected by the flood in Anambra State. It was thereafter that the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, intervened that Biobarakuma should accommodate other states that have been greatly affected by the flood.
Lawan, having listened to all sides, then approved the motion.
Efforts to get comments from the senators on why they were silent on the flood that has taken over their state proved abortive as their phone lines were not reachable after the plenary.
It was, however, observed that the Kogi West senator was not at the plenary and when The PUNCH reached out to him, he replied via a text that he was not in the country but within West Africa on a mission to the Economic Community of West Africa States parliament.
