By Precious Akutamadu
Port Harcourt Jan. 27, 2024
The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has donated 24 trucks of relief materials to eight Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Rivers affected by flooding in 2023.
The Rivers Representative on the NDDC Board, Chief Tony Okocha, presented the materials to the chairmen of the affected LGAs, on behalf of the board, in Port Harcourt on Friday.
Okocha said, during the presentation of the relief materials to the chairmen of the LGAs affected the floods that each truck contained 47 different items, which were meant to cushion the effects of the flood on the victims.
The relief materials included bags of rice, beans, noodles, milk, tomatoes, sugar, salt, vegetable oil, Lipton tea and bottled water.
Others were nylon mats, mosquito nets, cartons of sanitary pads, bath soap, mattresses/pillows, blankets, slippers, disinfectants, tissue papers, toothpaste and tooth brushes.
The rest were wrappers, lanterns, wheelbarrows, shovels, diggers and hoes, basins, water cans, water drums, spoons, plates, cups, fishing equipment, mosquito sprays, detergents, rain boots, canoes and paddles, torch lights, chemicals for farmers and cassava grinding machines, amongst others.
Okocha said that the distribution of the materials was one of the projects of the state NDDC and assured that the commission would be responsive to the people of the region.
He said that the project was a demonstration of President Bola Tinubu’s responsiveness to Nigeria citizens.
“The president through NDDC had assembled palliative materials that will be of use to the people who suffered the impact of environmental devastation.
“NDDC had assembled materials incidental to their problems and ancillary to their solutions, and those materials are edibles and other items that they were dispossessed of by the flood,” Okocha said.
He urged the LG chairmen not to politicise the distribution of the items but ensure that it got to the communities affected.
In a remark, the Director, NDDC, Rivers State Office, Mr. Theophilus Allagaa, said that NDDC decided to start the distribution of the materials in the worst hit LGAs in Rivers.
Allagaa confirmed that the commission had about 47 items in the list to distribute, three trucks each to the impacted communities.
He urged the representatives of the eight affected communities to ensure that the items got to the people.
He also urged the communities to report to NDDC, if the materials did not get to them.
Allagaa warned that the community representatives would be held accountable, if the materials were not distributed to the various communities.
According to him, the new administration of the NDDC was determined to make a difference from the previous administrations.
In a response on behalf of other LGA chairmen, the Ahoada East LGA Chairman, Mr. Hope Ikiriko, thanked the president and NDDC board for the succour given to the affected LGAs.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the affected LGAs are Ahoada East, Ahoada West, Abua-Odual, Andoni, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Asari Tolu, Tai, and Gokana.
