Ozobo, IPDI laud Tompolo over N150m donation to flood victims

Foremost Niger Delta rights group, the Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI, has hailed leader of the defunct Movement For The Emancipation of Niger Delta, MEND, High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, for presenting palliatives worth N150million to flood victims in Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta States on Monday.

The group in a statement by its National President Comrade Austin Ozobo, on Wednesday said the gesture from Tompolo was “highly commendable” and well deserved.

According to the statement, “Tompolo’s donation would go a long way in resettling the devastated flood victims who are now gradually returning to their homes from the Internally Displaced Person camps, where they have been temporarily kept.”

IPDI also urged other well-meaning and wealthy Niger Deltans and Nigerians to emulate Tompolo’s gesture and give support to the flood victims as they returned home.

Ozobo maintained that flood victims need serious support as they lost their livelihoods to the devastating flood, adding that Tompolo had written his name in gold for this rare gesture.

Recall, Tompolo had on Monday at an event held in Warri, Delta State presented palliatives comprising 2,400 bags of rice, 100 bags of beans, 200 bags of gari, 5,000 tubers of yams, 200 kegs of palm oil, 600 cartons of vegetable oil as well as 2,000 cartons of noodles, to representatives of the flood victims drawn from the three Niger Delta States.

Tompolo, while presenting the palliatives through the Executive Secretary of the Tompolo Foundation, Dr. Paul Bebenimibo, lamented the havoc done to the victims of this year’s ravaging flood, urging the beneficiaries to put behind them the memory of the ugly past and move on with life with renewed vigour and hope in God.