The disastrous effect of flooding has indiscriminately got to the Royal family.
His Royal Highness, Amos Poubinafa, the traditional Chief of Tungbo town in the Bayelsa region’s Sagbama Local Government Area, is currently displaced and now sleeps in his car.
“I have been sleeping in my Toyota Sienna for two weeks since the flood ravaged the palace.
“It reached the knee level and made the palace uninhabitable,” the retired Naval officer told newsmen on Monday in Tungbo.
“The car is the only safe place for me; the entire building is flooded and there is no safer place for me to sleep.
“My family has been relocated to Yenagoa. As the Captain on board (traditional ruler) this vessel, I cannot abandon my subjects to seek an alternative abode outside the town.
“By my training as a Naval officer, I am not expected to abandon the crew I am leading in my vessel. I am expected to be the last man standing,’’ he said.
Poubinafa also said he equally suffered in the floods of 2012, as he could not leave his subjects and relocate and that the situation is worse in 2022.
He appealed to the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA; the Bayelsa Emergency Management Agency, and other well-meaning individuals to assist flood victims in Tungbo town.
To stop the country’s ongoing floods, he also urged the federal government to build dams and dredge the Rivers Niger and Benue.
The Federal Scones and Technical College, a coeducational institution founded in 2002 and situated on Sagbama-Tungbo Road, is housed in the Tungbo settlement.
Before assuming the king in 2002, Poubinafa left the Nigerian Navy as a lieutenant commander.
