…says state government not proactive

Laide Raheem, Abeokuta

The Ogun State chapter of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), has commiserated with the victims, particularly families whose members lost their lives in flood which ravaged the Abeokuta metropolis last Friday.

The party, which described the incident as “saddening and unfortunate”, noted that 11 lives that were lost and property worth millions of naira that perished, was huge loss to the entire state.

In a statement, signed on Tuesday in Abeokuta by Aminat Olatunbosun and Moruf Popoola, the state chairman and the secretary of UPN respectively, the party said though, “our assessment of the situation revealed that the disaster was crisis between man and nature, but it could be averted if government had been responsive and sensitive to the plight of the people”.

The party blamed the state government for not being proactive since Ogun was listed in 2017 by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) and Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA), as one of the 35 states expected to experience flood in 2018.

The statement partly reads: “We believe a responsive government should have been proactive and arrest the situation from reaching this level, but the government was insensitive to such warning.

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“We have done the little in our capability to render assistance to the affected victims in little way, but that is not enough, government should set up a relief fund where all well meaning sons and daughters of the state can contribute jealously irrespective of their political affiliation. Government should not deceive itself by playing politics with lives and livelihood of the victims by saying it would cater for everyone of them.

“No amount of assistance government can do that will be sufficient enough for the victims. It must be a collective efforts and be transparent”.

Meanwhile, the party urged its members across the state to disregard the purported defection of some UPN members to other parties in the state. According to the statement, the defection report was described as “a political gimmick of some desperate politicians to rise on the pedestal of success of UPN to score cheap political goals”.

“We have read in some dailies that, some members of UPN have defected to some unknown political parties, especially in Ogun State. But to set the record straight, UPN Ogun State chapter remains the only party that that is yet to lose its members.

“We are still having our ward meetings to local government and we make bold to say that, our camps are still intact. Those parading themselves as UPN defectors are “homeless politicians” who are looking for source of livelihood.

“Nobody should use UPN as way of gaining public acceptance. Very soon we shall declare our stand for the 2019 general elections in Ogun and present our candidates to the public”, the statement added.