The First Lady, Sen. Oluremi Tinubu on Thursday, through her Renewed Hope Initiative, RHI, donated a cash gift of N250,000 to each of the 57 families affected by flood at the Trademore Estate in Lugbe, Abuja.
The estate was flooded after a heavy downpour on June 24, destroying property and rendering the residents homeless.
Nana Shettima, the wife of the Vice President Kashim Shettima who represented the first lady, said the first lady’s gesture was to honestly condole with the victims of the flood.
“I am been emotional but as a mother I will gather the courage for us do the needful, our mother Tinubu the initiator of RHI asked me to extend her condolences to commensurate with you.
“To those that lost their family, she prays that the almighty will grant them eternal peace.
“My presence here on behalf of the mother of the nation is for us to reach out to you and to show how compassionate Her Excellency is toward you.
“ Chairman, for sure; I am going to take your message to her, finally, what we need from you all is your support and everything is going to be alright.
Earlier, the Chairman of Phase 3, Trademore Estate, Adewale Adenaike who spoke on behalf of the residents, thanked the first lady and her husband for their kind gesture.
Mr Adenaike appealed for the support of the first lady to use her office in ensuring that the estate was not demolish.
He said the flood was not caused by the residents, adding that there are other avoidable human factors like illegal diversion of drainage from the neighbourhood that made it prone to natural disasters.
“In spite of your busy schedules, you find it humane enough to reach out to us, we cannot thank you enough, we can only pray for God to replenish your energy.
“As we speak, we have over 74 estates and we are still building more in this area, without environmental impact assessment, there will be major disaster in this area.
“We were told that the government officials from the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) are coming to demolish the estate, but there are other solutions to natural hazards than demolition of houses,“he said.
“Today is not about blame game, we need professional engineers to proffer solution, this is not a Trademore estate problem, we need experts to look into the problems, we need hydrological survey in the entire Abuja.
“We have no power to control the development control but as our mother, we are crying to you to look at the problems for us all to look into the solution, displacement is not the solution,’’he said.
NAN
