Rivers flood disaster: Hoodlums cart away 20 bags of rice donated to victims

The problems of flood victims in Rivers State were yesterday compounded when unidentified persons raided their camp at one of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Akinima, in Ahoada-West Local Government Area and looted over 20 bags out of the 200 bags of rice donated to them by the Police Officers Wives Association (POWA).

The wife of the Inspector-General of Police, (IGP), Hajiya Asmau Ibrahim Idris, made the donation at the camp on behalf of Police officers’ wives last week.

The bags of rice were looted after the flood and emergency management committee had shared 13 bags to each of the 12 wards in Ahoada-West local government.

Chairman of the Akinima Flood Management Committee, Mr. Isibi Maurice, who confirmed the incident said the bags of rice were shared according to ward’s to make sure that everyone benefited since all the communities in the local government area were affected by the flood.

He revealed that the representatives of wards 1 and 2, were attacked on their way to deliver the bags of rice to their wards by some hoodlums who were said to have blocked the vehicles carrying the items to and ward representatives a few minutes after they drove out of the IDP camp where they were shared by officials of the flood and emergency management committee.

According to him, the hoodlums carted away all the 13 bags of rice meant for ward 1, and over seven bags of rice out of the 13 bags that were allocated to ward 2, in Akinima.

Mr. Maurice explained that each ward was represented by two men and a woman at the IDP camp where the bags of rice were shared.

Mr. Maurice explained: “Two men and a woman represented each ward. After loading the 13 bags of rice into the vehicle, I told them to drive to the Police station because the crowd was too much.

But on their way, the crowd stopped the vehicle, beat up the driver and those trying to protect the bags of rice in front of the Police and carted away all 13 bags of rice meant for ward 1. At the end, ward 1, didn’t get any bag of rice.”

He stated that each of the three IDP camps in Akinima was given five bags of rice, adding: “After sharing 13 bags of rice to each of the 12 wards, we now considered those at the IDP camps and gave the three camps five bags each. We also gave them about eight to 10 cartons of noodles.”

Commenting on the issue, the chairman of Ahoada-West Flood Management Committee, Melford Ezebalike, said although he hasn’t been fully briefed on what actually transpired, he was of the opinion that what happened was avoidable.

He said he appealed to them to be patient because of the surging crowd, but the people from Akinima were eager to take their share of the bags of rice to their homes.

“The situation was tense. The crowd was so much. We advised them to be patient but we’re so eager to go home with their share of the rice.

When we noticed that the crowd was increasing and surging towards the donated items, we decided to hand over some of the items to the Akinima Police Division for safe-keeping.”

He stated: “I won’t be surprised if the rice meant for wards 1 and 2, were hijacked by hoodlums. We tried to delay the sharing of the bags of rice, but their representatives insisted that they were on ground and that nothing would happen. They should have been a little patient.

“If not for the timely intervention of the Divisional Police Officer of Akinima Police station and Police Area Commander of Ahoada, they would have carted away all the relief materials. The crowd was so much. And they were surging and surging towards us.”

A source in Akinima Police station said although some looting took place at Akinima during the sharing of relief materials he was not in a position to confirm if 20 bags of rice were hijacked from the beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, some flood victims at the Akinima IDP camps are unhappy that they gave only three bags of rice to their camp which comprised about 500 people. They wondered why they were not given mattresses, soaps, detergents, plastic buckets, among other relief materials donated by POWA.