Ahmed Idris 
…As NEDC releases food, non-food items to the victims.
The Bormo state government has distributed N10,000 each to both male and female households victims of Maiduguri floods
Distributing the funds to the victims at the Bakasdi IDP camp, Governor Babagana Zilum said “We are here this morning basically to distribute N10,000 cash to each victim of the flood both male and female household victims of the flood.”.
He said more than 1/3 of the city had been taken over by the flood which constitute about 1 million people were affected, and 100, 000 displaced..
“Luckily for us, we just received N3 billion flood intervention funds from the Federal Government. So we are using part of this fund to provide immediate support to the communities affected by the flood”, Governor Zilum said.
He said, “We have separated them into different camps and already providing support we will come up with long-term and short-term measures as soon as we take the data of the people affected.”
The Governor explained that ” the water this year exceeded the capacity of the dam, we had a very heavy rainfall and it may be due to climate change. What we need to do now is to reconstruct the dam.
Also, most of the waterways are blocked because people build houses on the waterway thereby reducing the width of the canals. This is one of the major reasons for this problem”.
“We have not seen this kind of flooding in about 50 years There was also the release of water from Cameroon and other countries and this compounded the problem”, Zulum.
In a related development, the North East Development Commission (NEDC), has released 10,000 bags of rice, 10,000 cartons of spaghetti, 15,000 branded mats, 15,000 blankets, 10,000 pieces of brocades and wrappers each, 5, 000 cartons of cooking oil, 5,000 picked of children cloths, and 7,500 pieces of mosquito net#.
Addressing journalists at a press briefing at the NEDC headquarters, Maiduguri on Wednesday, the Managing Director NEDC, Alhaji Goni Alkali said we are just releasing 200,000 bags of rice, 150,000 cartons of spaghetti, 250, 000 cartons of cooking oil, 200,000 pieces of blankets, 200,000 pieces of mats, 30,000 pieces of brocades, 50,000 pieces of wrappers 65,000 pieces of children wear 20,000 pieces of mosquito nets to the 6 states of the Northeast “.
The MD said just recently we were in Adamawa, Bauchi, Yobe and Taraba, Today we are here in Maiduguri, and tomorrow we are going to Gombe to assess the collapsed bridges with a view to intervening.
Alhaji Goni Alkali said they are going to use the political structures in the Northeast, which consist of 18 senatorial Districts, 48 Federal constituencies and 1,024 state constituencies to distribute the palliatives.
He said these are short-term interventions but the commission has a policy document for the medium and long term development of the region.
On the issue of the collapse of Slau Dam, Alhaji Goni Alkali said the commission has awarded the contract for the renovation of the spillage and desilting of the dam but with this development, they going to review the contract and award for the complete rehabilitation of the Dam
