Residents of Sharamansur quarters in Funakaye Local Council of Gombe State, yesterday, recalled how they were rendered homeless by flood, following four hours of rain that shook the foundation of the council. To average farmers in the locality, hopes of earning bountiful harvest are dashed. According to the victims, it started like any other day, as many left for the farm and daily routine, without an inkling of what was to come. The chairman of Funakaye Local Council, Hon. Adamu Cheldu, said 7,000 villagers were affected. A villager, Adamu Dahiru, said: “Since the founding of the village 70 years ago, such torrential rain never happened.” Dahiru, a teacher, said: “At the end, many of us are now squatting with our neighbours. Fellow villagers are now assisting us with accommodation and palliatives to ease our agonies. ” Another villager, Usman Musa, a 29-year-old businessman, said: “I feel bad, I can hardly replace my property that was destroyed by the rain. Though I lost many things, some people lost all they ever worked for.” The village head, Mai Angoa, said it was an avoidable calamity if only the contractor that constructed the drain channel from the Bajoga old cemetery to the Federal Government Girls College (FGGC) had done a good job. “The contractor did not do a good job on the channel and the culverts at all, we have been having flooding since the channel was constructed but we never had it this devastating,” he said. However, the villagers are convinced that the channel done by the construction company couldn’t hold the water that spilt over and entered their houses to wreak havoc.

The village head however urged the council boss to re-award the contract for an enduring water channel that would withstand any torrential pressure. The position of the village head was reinforced by the council chief, Adamu Cheldu, who took the state’s delegation led by the Deputy Governor, Manassah Jatau on a tour of the area. Cheldu informed the delegation that included the Secretary to the State Government (SSG,) Prof. Ibrahim Njodi, some commissioners and top government officials, that “the problem and the cause of this flooding is lack of waterways; we don’t have enough channels and drainages to contain the volume of water, especially when it falls like that in the future.” Speaking on the disaster, Director General of the State Emergency Management Authority (GOSEMA), Muhammed Garba, said the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) had warned that Funakaye tops the list of places likely to be affected by flooding in the country.