The Former Special Adviser to
President Olusegun Obasanjo on National Assembly Matters, Senator Florence
Ita-Giwa, has alleged staff of Cross River State Emergency Management Agency
(SEMA) diverted relief materials meant for refugees in Ata Ema community of
Bakassi Local Government Area.
She made the allegation while
addressing newsmen in Calabar following a tip-off by a whistle-blower.
According to her, the diverted
relief materials were meant to provide support for the Internally Displaced
Persons (IDPs) in Ata Ema community whose shanties were razed in an inferno in
April 2017.
Ita-Giwa said that, some of the
items allegedly found in private home of the SEMA staff, were the materials
meant to be part of the federal government’s intervention in the area.
She said that she had gone to
Ata-Ema with the National Refugee Commissioner after the inferno, and a
fortnight later; the National Refugee Commission intervened with the materials
which were delivered in a ceremony held at Cross River SEMA office with the
Deputy Governor, Professor Ivara Esu, in attendance.
Ita-Giwa, however, lamented that
the materials were yet to be delivered till date.
She said: “I want Nigerians to know this. The relief materials were for the people in Ata Ema, whose houses were engulfed by fire.
“Then I started hearing rumors that they were seeing those things in timber market, that they are seeing the zincs being sold off.
“In fact, the information was given to us by a whistleblower who was supposed to be part of the transaction of selling of some of the items.”
Meanwhile the Director General of
the Cross River State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) John Inaku, swiftly
took to the airwave to dismiss the claims by Ita-Giwa.
Inaku, in a live programme
anchored by Rasheed Olanrewaju of AIT, said the allegations hold not waters as
the relief materials were delivered to the Head of local Government
Administration (HOLGA) in the Local Government Area for onward transmission to
victims of the fire incident.
The items presented to the
Bakassi IDPs by the National Refugee Commission to ease their pain over the
inferno include; 268 bags of cement, 400 bundles of roofing sheets, over 800
assorted woods, 95 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans, 70 bags of 50kg Garri, drugs
and other materials.
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