Bayelsa traditional rulers lament loss of artefacts to flood

Nathan Tamarapreye, Yenagoa

Traditional Rulers in Bayelsa have lamented that the lifetime savings invested in artefacts, furniture and priceless equipment inherited from their forefathers have all been swept away by the ravaging floods that submerged the state.

Chairman of Bayelsa State Traditional Rulers Council and Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama Kingdom in Yenagoa Local Government Area, King Bubaraye Dakolo, while speaking with newsmen, said about 90 per cent of the traditional rulers in the state were displaced from their palaces during the peak of flooding in Bayelsa.

According to him, the 2022 flood has unleashed unprecedented havoc on the state and beyond.

He urged the Federal Government to help the state address some of the post-flood challenges as the water recedes.

He said: “If you look from my left and right, you are actually looking at people who were internally displaced, lifetime savings in furniture and priceless equipment inherited from forefathers completely taken away by flood waters.

“Most of them have to leave their domains and relocate as IDPs in Yenagoa, 90% of traditional rulers in Bayelsa State were victims of the flood.

“I need not remind anyone that we well know that the oil and gas resources used to lubricate the wheels of governance in Nigeria come from the bowels of the land mass on which we stand.

“I mean from the bowels of the Niger Delta where Bayelsa State is located. We also need not reiterate that our kingdoms and clans, our flood-ravaged kingdoms and clans, constitute crude oil blocs owned by persons and business concerns which regrettably, we do not own.

“Even though the gas flares are still burning-hot in our kingdoms despite the overwhelming floodwaters, the federal government should use the monies from oil and gas extracted from here to provide succour and welfare to the teeming number of Bayelsans who are internally displaced, having been ravaged by the most devastating flood ever.

“Royal fathers of Bayelsa State, have observed that not only did the 2022 flood unleash unprecedented havoc in Bayelsa State and beyond.

“It also opened the floodgates of ignorance on the subject of the misery floodwaters could unleash on people who live on the flat arcuate lowlands adjacent to the mighty Atlantic Ocean.

“Given the wrong public perception of this year’s flood which is unarguably the worst ever to occur in the lives of the Ijaws of Bayelsa State, and perhaps others too.

“It has become absolutely necessary for the Royal Fathers of the State to speak out loud, so as to straighten the crooked records, and above all, jolt all concerned to do the work for which they are paid.

“We condemn the complete absence of agents of statutory Federal Government Agencies and Ministries saddled with the job of rendering assistance in our domains at times such as these.

“Rather we were seeing oil workers in their coveralls safe in their shuttles, going about their greasy, oily business, all over our flood-ravaged State.

“Pitiably, there is no evidence yet about any intervention from the oil industry to the flood-ravaged people of Bayelsa State also. Could it be that they also wished us all dead?

“Well, being natural swimmers, though distressed and displaced like never before, most of us are still alive, while this type of calamity had never befallen our people.

“We had never imagined that this degree of extreme insensitivity and lack of interest would be displayed with respect to the survival and welfare of our peaceful people who are all fellow citizens of this great country for all to see at a time like this.

“While many persons were washed away outrightly by the ubiquitous fast-flowing floodwaters with their corpses gone forever into the Atlantic Ocean and so never to be found, others, especially unsuspecting toddlers drowned right in their own flooded bedrooms.

“As the floodwaters recede, we are sure to experience post-flood ailments if the Federal Government’s complementary mitigation efforts remain conspicuously absent, conspicuously low, or conspicuously insufficient,” he said.