By George Edomwonyi
Benin – The Nigerian Maritime Administrative and Safety Agency (NIMASA), has donated food items and relief materials to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Edo.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the items include bags of rice, bags of bean, mattresses, blankets, sewing machines, diapers, sanitary pads and toiletries, oil, cassava and other food items.
Presenting the items to the state government on Friday in Benin, the Director-General, NIMASA, Dr Dakuku Peterside, represented by the Assistant Director Procurement, Mr Kevin Ogbuanu, said the donation was part of the corporate social responsibility of the agency.
Ogbuanu said the distribution of the relief materials cut across 20 states of the federation which were affected by flood and other related disasters.
“The agency has a corporate social responsibility policy since 2017; the Director-General of NIMASA, Dr Dakuku Peterside, set up a committee to develop strategies that would impact on states that were affected by disasters so that they can equally be touched.
“For 2018 there were serious flood disasters in 20 states and the D-G approved for relief materials in 20 states.
“Edo state is equally one of the states that were affected; it is in response to this that we have come this morning to handover the items to the state government.
“We have the IDP’s in the state, so it behooves on us to distribute the items to the state government,” he said.
He, however, urged the authority to ensure the items were properly distributed to those affected by disasters and IDP’s in the state.
Receiving the items on behalf of the state government, the SSA to the governor on Edo State Emergency Management Agency (EDOSEMA), Mr Salami Luqman, thanked NIMASA for the kind gesture.
According to Luqman the state government is pleased with the distribution of the items, and also committed to ensure the judicious distrbution to the affected persons.
“We are really indeed very grateful to NIMASA for deeming it fit to bring this kind of relief materials to the state.
“We are also pleased in getting the materials and we promise the agency that the relief materials are going to be judiciously used by the affected people and other related emergency.
Luqman, however, called on other organisation to key into NISAMA policy by donating relief materials to victims of disasters in their respective domains.
“Multi national organisations have social responsibility to the state in which they reside and to the country at large, my advice to them is to key into the NIMASA policy by giving relief materials to people that are affected by all forms of disasters.
“By doing this it will ameliorate the sufferings of the people and bring them back to life to know that they belong to the society and the society remembers them in their times of need,’’ he said.