•As flood wreaks havoc on diva’s home
When sensational soul singer, Asa, sings in one of her popular tracks that “one day the river will overflow and there will be nowhere for us to go”, little did Afro pop diva, Faith Nwaumo-Eke aka Muma G know that the song will turn-out prophetic and would capture her current experience.
Only recently, flood wreaked havoc on the entire Ahoada West Local Government Area of River State from where Muma G hails, rendering the inhabitants of about 60 villages homeless. Also, Ahoada East, Abua/Odua, and Ogba/Egbema Local Government Areas made up of Orashi region were not left out of the sad experience.
“If you get here, wild animals from the forest have turned to our villages for safety. It has gone beyond our control. Right now, there are snakes all over the place. People are standing in the water and snakes are hovering around them,” she lamented.
Tears
With tears streaming down her cheeks, Muma G narrated to The Entertainer how the flood had affected her relatives, turning them into refugees in their own land. “It is a natural disaster. It is in fact an ecological havoc. We just saw that the flood besieged all the communities. It came with force. Over 60 villages are submerged in the flood and people are displaced.
“The situation is so bad. Some people don’t have relations and you know how Nigeria is, most people in the village don’t have relations outside the village. For those that don’t have relations outside the village, there is no hope. My people are lucky because they have people like me who have a place at Port Harcourt. My compound now is like a refugee camp filled up with different families from different villages. There are those that don’t have any place to go, they are stranded right now.”
Robbery
The musician alleged that miscreants and thieves are seeing the situation as an opportunity to steal valuable things from the villagers. “Bad people are using the opportunity to rob us now. People don’t have conscience; instead of helping the victims they are busy robbing them of their valuables. I always go there everyday to monitor the situation of things.
If we can get relief materials, it will go a long way to help the people in this trying time. Robbers are coming through the Express road to rob the people because my village is accessible through the East-West road, the East-West road as well is broken into two,” she remarked
According to Muma G, her Foundation, which will be unveiled on October 26, is an avenue to safe lives in the region. “The state governor visited the place on the first day of the incident. He promised to set up a committee, which he actually did. He set up the committee with the deputy governor as the chairman. And the next day, the deputy governor also went to see things by himself. It is a very pathetic situation honestly.
“The Ahoada West Local Government chairman is working directly with the Muma G Foundation to ensure that the relief programme which is coming up on October 26 is successful. The relief programme will take place in the affected three Local Government Areas.”
Destabilized
Still crying profusely, Muma G lamented that the ugly situation has destabilized her music career. Hear her: “It has destabilized me emotionally and not just emotionally but also as a musician. Everyday I get here, I shed tears because it is really painful to see your family, my people, people I sing for and sing about submerged in flood.
I do African music and that promotes the culture and heritage of my people. And then we have lost all the values and cultural artifacts that I am talking about. They are in the water and consumed by flood.”
My new album
Right now, I am actually working on my latest album, which is titled, Motherland but I have stopped work on it for the past one week. You can see the setback because a lot of lives are in danger here. Look, I cannot speak on… (Sobbing) If the government can provide materials for the Muma G Foundation, we have a lot of voluntary workers.
They should provide sleeping materials like camping beds. People are crying that they need hot water and hot tea because they are cold inside. And honestly, if nothing is done I am afraid disease will spread like wild fire in the whole villages. Right now, we cannot even get first aid for the people. You can imagine we are using canoe to go inside the villages to save lives. A whole six-storey building is inside the water.
The worst of it all is drinking water, they don’t even have water to drink, because the toilet water has mixed up with the drinking water and everything is in a mess. If nothing is done now trust me death will come. With the ecological disadvantage caused by the flood and the inconvenience on the people, in the next 10 years my people and I cannot recover. You can see the reason why I am crying. It is really sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment