Once flood is gone, the next few months will be hell – Bozimo, ex-police affairs minister!

[MrVan]

By SIMON EBEGBULEM, Benin City

Alowei Broderick Bozimo is a  former Minister of Police Affairs. Bozimo's farm and his country home in Bomadi, Delta State  were  washed  away  by  flood.  In this interview,  he regrets  not following the foot steps of his father in building a storey building  in the village after seeing the flood take over his building and farm. He also speaks  on the security challenges facing the nation and other national issues.

Excerpts:

How would you describe the devastating effects of the flooding, particularly in the Niger Delta and other parts of the country?

The flood was completely strange, completely out of character and unprecedented. All my life in Ijaw, I have never experienced this kind of environment. When we were younger, the  annual flood was  never as devastating as this,. a situation where we have to paddle the canoe to get into our homes, farms destroyed, children exposed to diseases, farmers can hardly see land to process their farm produce, premature harvesting of cassava, its really serious.

I have already appealed to my governor and the Federal Government to do something and luckily one now found that the Federal Government has started putting in place  initiatives which  are  extremely laudable. But one still has  reservation as to whether we have the capacity to drive the process to obtain maximum benefit from the exercise.

So what do you think we can do now as a nation?

I think that, one, we have to be proactive to a certain extent. I recall that the Federal Government put out warnings ahead of this crisis but,  you know, for this warning to get down to the grassroots, and for the local communities to appreciate this danger, perhaps the enlightement  should have been much more fierce.

In other words, institutions like the National Orientation Agency should have taken this more seriously. From the information gathered, this problem was precipitated by the dams in  Cameroun and  Kainji;  they were threatened so they  had  to release water out of the system.

That explains the excessive flooding. So I suppose the construction of the dams should be looked at, a situation where dams can be overwhelmed is a dangerous situation. So I think that is an aspect the government should look at. Thirdly, our emergency crisis management team should receive adequate training and also government should examine what type of relief materials should be given.

*Bozimo Of course I understand that mattresses, food stuff are good but, of course, as some body observed, you might find a situation whereby you cannot find firewood or land to cook your rice, so those are areas they should look at.

There should be sufficient funding already made available so that the staff of  relief organizations like the Red Cross  should receive up to date training so that they are able to mobilize quickly to address some of these problems. Otherwise we will just be throwing good money after the problem and that will not solve the problem.

But do you think the money budgeted by the Federal Government so far for flood victims will help solve the problem?

Certainly it will help but I don't believe that it will eradicate the present problems the communities are suffering. Perhaps the emphasis should be on the best way to address the sufferings and the problems resulting from this flooding. It is not necessarily bringing out huge sums of money which may not necessarily be properly managed to address the core problems of this crisis of flood.

I want to say that in a situation like this it is even difficult to determine the magnitude of the devastation. I know that the entire Ijaw areas in the Niger Delta is flooded.

Like in my own local constituency in Burutu Local Government, the flood affected Gbekorbo town, Okrika, Okwangbe in Ughelli town, we saw Ufukaba in Ughelli South, we saw Ayakromo in Burutu Local Government, we saw Ezebri my own community, we saw Ogodo bridge in Bomadi Local Government.

So I saw massive devastation that the flood has inflicted on the community. The entire farms have been destroyed, livestock were washed away, my own farm is gone. So there is serious suffering now in our communities. People are prematurely harvesting their cassava so as to get food to eat.

That means the next few months will be hell once this flood  is over. So, on the whole, I think the entire Niger Delta, principally, riverine communities on the shores of the River Niger, on the shores of the River Forcadoes, those are the places that have been heavily affected.

Another thing is that with the dredging of the River Niger, one expects that there should be a way whereby they can establish embankments, sand fillings so that when water comes next time, it will be difficult to get into the villages.

That has not happened, I was reliably informed that in my area, the NDDC is in the process of carrying out fore our wall protection. If that was in place,  it would have helped but it will not eradicate the problem totally because I believe that if you don't sand fill properly, the water can come from behind to cause destruction.

Finally, I my self,  I have a bungalow in the village because I intend to retire ito the village and if you build up stairs,  how do you climb into your retirement home?  I learnt that from my father, he built his huge up stairs and, when he retired, he climbed up and never came down until he died.

So I decided to learn some lesson  from him. But,  from this flood experience, what the old man sees sitting down, the son does not see standing up. I can now say that my father has the reason of building a storey building. Today people are running to that his storey building  for safety while I am wallowing in my bungalow.

I was confused when I got to my community Honestly, I felt very sad when I got home. But I cannot blame government because the flood was not caused by them, it is a  natural disaster. But government has a duty to be prepared for this kind of disaster. For Ijaw people,  it is terrible because we have to paddle canoe in the  street; so it is double tragedy for the Niger Delta people who are in the shores of the River Niger.

So you now commend the wisdom of your father who built an up stair (laughter)

I do. It is unfortunate that I am over 70, so it will be difficult for me to start building a storey building  now. What my father saw sitting down I could not see it standing on top of the roof. When the flood was building, we started moving to my father's house but now that the house is crowded I cannot get space there. But I will tell my children; when you come home,  please build up stairs, don't build bungalow  because it will not work'.

As a  former Minister of Police Affairs in this country, how do you see our security system?

I think one has to be careful coming into conclusion that our security apparatus has completely collapsed. I do not subscribe to that. The reason being that the Boko Haram and the general insecurity you see in Nigeria  is not limited to Nigeria. It is every where,  in America , Syria , Israel , name it.

Even in America,  some body will buy a rifle, walk into a school and start shooting people. So I think that it is an endemic problem with humanity. I can't explain it but it looks like as the generations develop, all kinds of things happen to human beings and they begin to behave in different ways.

Perhaps psychiatrics and criminologists will have to address this problem. But what I know in Nigeria , because of the political situation, the cultural and religious situations, all kinds of factors are working together to produce this kind of insecurity.

And it is not easy for the average government to anticipate all of these and proactively address them. You and I would not have imagined few years ago that this country will start experiencing what other countries have been experiencing  like suicide bombing.

It is staring us on the face today and it will take time for the security agents to catch up with this phenomenon had . I know that when I was Minister of Police Affairs, we had  traces of Boko Haram in Borno, the Maitasinin kind of people. I remember I went there when they bombed a police station in Borno. Before now, it was completely localized but you can see the thing spreading gradually and the security agents are battling them but at a very heavy cost.

Manpower, destruction of lives and property and the general insecurity it has caused. And it is unfortunate that it will affect our economic growth because without peace and security, economic development does not happen robustly. But, with time, I believe that things will settle down, it cannot go on like this forever.

But many Nigerians believe that President Goodluck Jonathan is not doing enough to tackle the  security challenges?

Any body who holds the view that the president is not doing enough is extremely uncharitable to the position of the president. The president is only one human being, so if you think that the president alone can change every thing, then we don't understand what is happening.

Even  a military regime confronted with this kind of problem will be over whelmed not to talk of a civilian president, a young man, an academician who means well for Nigeria . We must sympathize with Jonathan and give him all the support.

As a former Minister of Police Affairs, before we left we have started introducing community policing. Community policing was meant to address this kind of situation. In order words, every Nigerian is his own police man. Every body is his brother's keeper, and, of necessity, it is beginning to happen now.

To  me, community policing addresses this business of state policing because there is no magic about state police. Just because you turn the name around and call it state police, then the Commissioner of Police in the state becomes the head of his own policing, that will not turn things around.

The communities will still have to cooporate with the local police to achieve result. And further more, a state police will not have the resources to have institutions for training police officers like you have centrally.

There will be total confusion. All these problems can be taken care of with a robust community policing, there will be no duplication. State police will not solve the problem but will compound it and with the tendency of most states to be independent, then the kind of complexion of policing that you find from state to state will be determined by the kind of political posture of the governor and that will not augur well for a developing country like ours. When we are more mature as a nation, then we can afford the luxury of a state police but right now we are not there yet.

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