The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, has been charged with bias by the Ijaw Youths Council.
The IYC deemed inflammatory the minister’s recent remarks that Bayelsa was not one of the top 10 states affected by the flood.
In a statement released in Port Harcourt, IYC President Peter Igbifa referred to the minister’s statement as ridiculous, irresponsible, insensitive, and inflammatory.
Igbifa requested an investigation of how she handled the disaster across the nation from President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd).
He said that Farouq had never visited Bayelsa nor dispatched a team to evaluate the reality of flood circumstances in the primarily coastal state, suggesting that the minister may have relied on hearsay figures she prepared from the comfort of her house rather than any field investigations.
The whole state was underwater, he declared. All farmlands were destroyed, houses were flooded up to the roofs, and many people, including members of the same families, perished.
“All public buildings, including marketplaces, schools, and places of worship, were flooded. The case in Bayelsa is still odd and tragic.
“The flood swamped and ruined the East-West route, the only road that leads to Bayelsa from both the Delta and Rivers axis, is why the state was cut off from the rest of the nation and her neighboring states.
“A humanitarian crisis already existed since food-carrying vehicles were unable to enter the state.
“The situation was so bad that many travelled into the state to show their support for the state.
“What is the minister saying exactly? When all these events occurred, did she journey to Mars or Pluto?
Is she engaging in partisan or racial politics? We are requesting that President Muhammadu Buhari look into the minister’s handling of the task he given her about the flood.
Igbifa reminded the minister that Bayelsa was still one of the states supporting the nation’s economy and that her comments demonstrated how the federal government had failed to support the state during its worst moment.
He claimed, “The minister would have put Bayelsa first if the flow of crude oil had been interrupted, if the flood had wrecked all the oil pipelines crisscrossing the state, and damaged other oil installations.
But perhaps the minister opted to support his people in the north because it only harmed the Ijaw and destroyed all of their means of subsistence.
“We won’t accept this clear marginalization and unfairness, and we’re waiting for the Presidency to take meaningful action against the minister, who has become a complete disaster.”
