Floods: NECCA coordinator says Buhari has failed in area of intervention

BY TOM GARBA

Coordinator of North East Concerned Citizens Association (NECCA), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Abubakar Ibrahim Gombi, says the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has disappointed Nigerians, especially in the area of intervention.

Ibrahim said this when he addressed journalists in Yola and expressed worry about how communities affected by natural disasters are being neglected under the watchful eye of the North East Development Commission (NEDC), and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), whose duties are to intervene in situations as such.

He accused NEDC and NEMA management of allowing the agencies to be dormant at the detriment of Nigerians.

Gombi, who is the Founder of North East Concerned Citizens Association (NECCA), said NEMA and NEDC have failed; an indication that President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime has also failed Nigerians.

According to Ibrahim, the present government is pushing Nigerians into excruciating pains of struggles – that is, survival of the fittest.

Ibrahim, while sympathising with victims of the flood disaster, where the Federal Government intervention apparatus such as NEMA and NEDC were expected to showcase their activities and move in to support the affected victims, said there were gross leadership defects with the present government.

He lamented that the victims were helpless Nigerians and that the government would have been more proactive to help, stressing that if it were one of them who fell victim, or their wards or children, they would all have rushed for support.

“All this is as a result of failures of the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, an indication of ineptitude in leadership qualities and lack of goodwill to govern well.

“NEDC and NEMA are nothing but dormant agencies, which would have not been created. They are virtually doing nothing with the way natural disasters of floods and other ills are ravaging our communities.

“My investigation revealed that the agencies like NEDC in Adamawa are partially in existence and that their office does not have up to five staff. And this is an area where insurgents have displaced an entire region, they almost take over the state. What we are getting is just a paltry of the many services the government of Buhari promised to give.

“What we want in that agency is a minister, not a chairman. The man is not just doing anything because we don’t see him anywhere performing functions in the name of the agency,” Ibrahim said.

Recall that NECCA was embroiled in registration scandals as a multi-purpose cooperative society limited in Jimeta, Adamawa, to have its scope of operation within Adamawa State.

Alhaji Jimeta lambasted the Founder, Ibrahim Gombi, calling him as a liar who has migrated his cooperative group to an NGO fighting for the interest of the Northeast region.

He said the group is a scam with no bearing other than a group with personal agenda.

Isa accused Abubakar to have been issuing threats and harassing some Federal Government senior civil servants and officials in Yola, with no mandate to do that.

“He is always moving from one ministry to another ministry of the Federal Government attacking directors and some senior civil servants in the name of fighting for the interest of the common man. It’s all a lie, he is not doing that for anyone’s interest.

“I think the man has many questions to answer but trying to divert the attention of people. His failure not to register his group and yet operating it is a big crime as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution,” Isa said.

According to him, NECCA is never and does not have what it takes to operate as an NGO without the registration mandate to fight for the interest of the people of North Eastern Nigeria.

He revealed that Gombi has, on many occasions, pursued materials as an NGO to distribute to people but was not provided by NEMA because the organisation was not qualified.

Our correspondent gathered that Gombi was, however, assured by NEMA to train his staff on disaster management if he truly had workers working in the organisation.

Abubakar Ibrahim Gombi for the past two days didn’t respond to calls made to his number by our reporter to respond over the allegations raised against him.