Early morning rain on Monday caused flooding which flowed over a large portion of the Yola-Mubi highway, cutting off the capital Yola from the northern part of Adamawa State.
People travelling from Yola to major northern Adamawa towns such as Song, Gombi, Hong, Mubi, Maiha, Michika and Madagali and those travelling from those places to Girei and Yola had to stop on both sides of the flooded portion near Jabi Lamba, a rural community in Girei LGA, where the flood water over the road was deepest.
Our correspondent, who got to the scene of the flood just before 9am, found that some passengers and other road users had been stranded for about three hours, waiting and hoping that the flood would recede soon enough for them to pass through.
Among those cut off from their trip towards northern Adamawa were the Chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Ishaka Dedan, and some members of the union who had left Yola earlier in the morning for a trip to Madagali and Michika, with a plan to later head to Mubi and Maiha.
The NUJ chairman, who was on a mission with other members of his Exco and selected reporters for a check on government projects around northern Adamawa, had to call off the trip and return to Yola.
Ishaka said in an interview back at the NUJ Secretariat in Yola that the flood had also affected education “because schools are supposed to resume today but as we saw, some schools along the highway were flooded.”
He appealed to government at all levels, especially the federal government because it is a federal road, to see what they must do to bring succour to the people.
Intermitent rain had started in Yola about 1am on Monday and continued off and on up to 6.30 am, which was perhaps the case in much of the rest of Adamawa State, as a phone call from a resident of Madagali (northern Adamawa) and another in Lamurde in southern zone, affirmed varying levels of flooding in some communities.
