On the 5th of November, 2020, the Olympus Marino Deck of the National Association of Seadogs, Pyrates Confraternity, visited the flood-ravaged Orashi zone of Rivers State, to assess the level of damage done by the floods, create awareness for increased government response and donate relief materials.
Between July and October 2012, flooding in Nigeria pushed rivers over their banks and submerged hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. Caused by the over-flow of the River Niger and compounded by torrential rains, the devastating flood menace forced over 1.3 million people from their homes and claimed 431 lives by mid-October of the same year, according to Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Besides destroying buildings and lives, the floods ravaged crops and severed transportation routes throughout the country.
In Rivers State, the entire Orashi area, comprising of four Local Government Areas; Abua/Odual, Ahoada East, Ahoada West and Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, is hugely affected every year since 2012, with a whole generation of people in that area left without any form of respite/response from government at all levels.
What has now become a perennial flooding in Orashi Rivers State comes, each year, with serious damage to the people’s buildings, properties, reduces the aesthetic beauty of the environment, poses great danger to their health, increases poverty level and results in the death of many.
As an organization focused on Humanistic Ideals and committed to eliminating the ills militating against the attainment of just and egalitarian society, we could not ignore the scale of suffering by the people impacted by this flood.
Apart from donating relief materials such as mosquito nets, food items and clothing, we also used the opportunity to call on governments at all levels and their agencies to come alive to their responsibilities by responding to this annual flood challenge to alleviate the devastating effects it leaves on the lives and livelihoods of the people.
To further demonstrate our commitment towards this, the Olympus Marino Deck of the National Association of Seadogs Pyrates Confraternity has, in the spirit of ‘acting ova yap’, also taken steps to schedule meetings with responsible government agencies in the coming weeks, to demand immediate action.
#OrashiFlooding #ForHumanisticIdeals
