Borno State Governor, Professor Babagana Zulum, has gifted cash to 10,000 families in Kala-Balge Local Government Area of the state affected by the double tragedy of migrating elephants and perennial flooding.
With the elephant routes cutting through the larger section of the local area, the wild beasts migrating from Cameroon Lagdo Dam shores to the Lake Chad every farming season feast on the major volume of the farm produce of majority of the communities there.
This year, majority of the LGA was cut off from the rest of the state by the perennial flooding caused by discharge from the Cameroon Dam, preventing residents from accessing other parts of the state for necessities.
These double tragedies have plunged the Kala-Balge communities into debilitating hardships, having lost their means of livelihood.
Consequently, Zulum, who could only access the LGA by a helicopter, rushed to Rann, the headquarters of the LGA where he coordinated the distribution of N100m to the over 10,000 families.
The beneficiaries included male heads of households, vulnerable women and housewives who received N10,000 cash each.
“We are here in Rann, headquarters of Kala-Balge, mainly to provide cash support to this community that was cut off from the rest of the country for the last 6 months as a result of flooding,” Zulum said.
The governor was silent on the havoc wreaked by the elephants. But an anonymous government official told our correspondent that Zulum rushed to Kala-Balge “to provide succour to the communities mainly for the loss of their farm produce to the migrating elephants.”
However, spokesman for the Kala-Balge communities, Professor Mohammed Abba Jimme of the University of Maiduguri Center for Arid Zone Studies, described the farm produce loss as “unquantifiable.”
He said, “The entire local government area has virtually lost all its food this year to the elephants.”
He said he is compiling a comprehensive list of farmers whose farm produce was destroyed by the wild beasts with a view to pursuing compensation for them.
