Lawmaker tasks media on natural disasters? reportage
On July 12, 2012 ? In News
By DANIEL GUMM
WARRI ? NIGERIAN media have been advised to ensure that their news items, particularly on the issue of? natural disasters are not limited to urban centres at the expense of rural areas, when such rural areas are exposed to the havoc of natural disasters.
Member representing Warri Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Mr. Daniel Reyenieju, said this, yesterday,? while commenting on the reported recent Atlantic Ocean surge on coastal communities.
Commenting on the recently reported flooding of some parts of Lagos, as a result of the ocean surge, the lawmaker urged journalists to note that worse forms of flooding arising from ocean surge is taking place in the different coastal communities, bordering the Atlantic Ocean, particularly in the coastal areas Warri Federal Constituency.
According to Reyenieju, unlike Lagos, ?none of these coastal communities in my constituency is protected, and since the beginning of the rainy season, many of such communities in the estuary of the Benin and Escravos rivers have experienced flooding and huge ocean waves which wrecked untold hardship on the people of the area.?
Reyenieju said that particularly in Ugogo-Egin, Ogheye, Zion, and Dimigun in the Warri North; and Ugborodo communities, Yenagho and Orere and even in Ago-Gboro in Warri South-West Local Government areas, the? surge of the ocean has inflicted multi-dimensional havoc in terms of destruction of accommodations, fishing boats and the washing away of settlements.
?In all these, the Nigerian media never capture any, but concentrated only in Lagos and environs. This is most painful and unfair to our people. Such restrictive pattern of reportage can misinform the public and even the governments.?
The lawmaker appealed to journalists to devise the requisite means and ways of covering and capturing such rural areas in their reportage.
