Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Ecological Fund, on Wednesday expressed anger with management of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), over the manner it distributed about 12,000 metric tonnes of grain as relief for flood victims.
The agency at the resumed investigative hearing on the receipt and utilisation of Ecological Funds by states and federal MDAs, had told the committee that the grains on the approval of President Muhammadu Buhari were taken from the strategic reserve, and distributed to the 36 states of the federation.
But the lawmakers queried the move on grounds that it was not all the states that were affected by the recent flood, even as some argued that there was no report of receipt of such reliefs in their states or constituencies.
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Ishiaka Ibrahim, blamed Director-General of NEMA, Mustapha Habib Ahmed for not carrying members of the National Assembly along in the process, adding that he and his colleagues from Ogun State had no information of such interventions.
A visibly angry Hon. Johnson Oghuma who later stormed out the heating venue raised issues with the claim by NEMA that State Houses of Assembly members were involved, as insisted that 14 members of his state Assembly (Edo) have not been sworn in until date, and demanded to know who were the members dealt with.
He also queried the rationale behind the decision to share the grains to states not in any way affected by the flood, and those affected not even reached.
“Are they not Nigerians? You call yourself NEMA, is NEMA Not for all Nigerians?”, he said.
The NEMA DG also in his submissions informed the committee that “to save lives of Nigerians and safeguard livelihoods, we had to swing into action to prepare’ and downscale the early warning alerts to State governments and all other emergency responders to minimize the impact of the impending flood predicted by NIMET and NIHSA to affect the entire federation.
“A total of 612 persons lost their lives, 3,219,780 persons were affected, 1,427,370 persons were displaced and 2,776 others suffered various degrees of injuries. A total of 181,600 houses were partially damaged and 123,807 houses were totally damaged. A total of 176,852 hectares of farmland were partially destroyed while 392,300 hectares of farmland got totally destroyed as a result of the floods”.
