Benue State Seeks FG’s Support to Tackle Flooding

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has requested the support of the Federal Government, corporate organisations and well-meaning individuals to tackle the devastations flood, erosion and herdsmen’s attacks have caused across the state.

According to New Telegraph, the governor made the call yesterday when a delegation of the Indices and Disbursement Committee of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, led by its Chairman, Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed Sokoto, visited him at the Government House, Makurdi, the state capital.

Ortom said the impact of the devastation caused by flood in 2012 across the state, as well as erosion in several parts of the state particularly the Benue North West and South Senatorial Districts and the Fulani herdsmen’s attacks in 10 Local Government Areas were so massive and far beyond the capacity of the state to tackle.

The committee, the governor noted, required at least one week to move round the affected communities in order to fully appreciate the magnitude of the devastation, adding that the state also required financial assistance and project support that would facilitate the resettlement of those affected, reclamation and prevention of further occurrence as the case may be.

The governor made it known that the state government had reduced the menace of herdsmen and farmers incessant clashes through intervention by security agencies and encouragement of dialogue between the parties, but added that the permanent solution remained ranching.

Ortom said the State House of Assembly would pass a bill prohibiting free grazing, but its implementation would be different from that of a South West governor. Sokoto explained that the committee was in the state in response to several letters from the state government requesting for the augmentation of the state’s statutory allocation from the stabilisation fund.

Source: New Telegraph