By Usman Abubakar, Maiduguri
Borno State is cap-in-hand, pleading with the World Bank to assist it in reconstruction and rehabilitation processes, following the last September 10 flood which displaced over two million residents of the Maiduguri metropolis.
The flood, which followed the collapse of the Alau Dam embankment, claimed over 150 lives and collapsed billions of naira worth of property.
“We are doing our best, but we have problems we want the World Bank to assist us solve to forestall future flooding,” Borno State Governor Babagana Umara Zulum, cried when the World Bank rehabilitation assessment team to the flood-affected locations paid him a courtesy call in Maiduguri, Monday, December 9.
“With regard to agro-climatic resilience, erosion control is not an easy task; we want the World bank to assist us in this regard; and we specially want the bank to assist us in the reconstruction of the collapsed bridges,” Zulum pleaded.
“The de-silting process of our waterways is one of our major problems; it is very cumbersome; so we want the bank to also assist us here,” the governor pleaded further.
He called on the World Bank to also assist in compensating the farmers affected by the flood who, he said, “lost almost everything” to the tragedy.
The World Bank team led by the bank’s Country Director in Nigeria, Ndiame Diop, commenced a two-day rehabilitate assessment tour of the locations affected by the flood across the metropolis.
“We are here to see how we can Borno State in emergency situations, especially with regard to the last September flood,” Diop told Governor Zulum when the assessment team paid him a courtesy, Monday, December 9.
“I am very impressed with the level of rehabilitation achieved,” he tersely said, shortly before Governor Babagana Zulum led the team on a further assessment tour of the affected locations, mainly the Alau Dam. END
