BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
The Nigerian Red Cross Society, Osun State Branch has commenced distributions of relief materials to citizens of the state who were affected by flood disaster.
The Society, with the support of the Federal Government, through the National Emergency Management Agency, distributed food items to flood victims in Osogbo over the weekend at its office located at Gbodofon Area of the capital city.
According to the Disaster Management Coordinator for the Red Cross, Otun Gabriel, areas the recent flooding incidents affected are Awosuru, Aregbe communities in Osogbo Local Government Area, Ilesa East and Ilesa West, Ife Central LGA, Isokan, Irewole local councils, Ede North and Ede South LGAs.
Gabriel said that the distribution started with the residents of Osogbo, adding that others would get their relief materials this week.
He said bags of garri, maize, and guinea-corn would be distributed to the people in the rural areas.
He said the distribution was impartial, devoid of political affiliations, adding, “The instruction received is that the relief materials are palliatives from the federal government, and were given to us to share to the people, and we only share based on humanitarian purpose.”
He added that the grains were packed in nylon bags, and was initially shared between counted numbers of people, but it was later discovered that the people turned out massively to collect the items.
“Though, we have a number of people to give the food items but the turning out is now more than what is expected because of the situation we found ourselves in this country.
“We started by giving them three nylon bags of different grains each, which contained maize, guinea-corn and garri, but when we discovered the rate in which the number of people increased, we turned it to two bags, later, we turned to one per person,” Gabriel explained.
Meanwhile, beneficiaries commended the society, Federal Government and NEMA for the relief materials and urged that such distribution of food items shouldn’t only be when there are disasters in the country.
A woman who identified herself as Bunmi, said, “I’m very grateful to the government for using this opportunity to help people with food, it will be good if they can be doing like this for us always. We have even forgotten about the flood incidents; our issue now is how to feed. It’s just an encouragement for those that are suffering from food shortage to be hopeful again in life.
“This is just to keep people away from poverty in the community and for people not to commit suicide for not having anything to eat,” she added.
