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The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on Wednesday distributed relief materials to victims of communal clash in Akoko South-East Local Government area of Ondo State.

The communal clash which happened in November, 2021 was between farmers in Supare Akoko and Oka-Akoko.

The items distributed include rice, beans, roofing sheets, bags of cement, cooking oil, tin tomatoes, nails and garri.

The Head of Ekiti Operation Office of NEMA, Mr Kadiri Olarewaju, while distributing the materials to the victims in Oka-Akoko, said the palliative would give succour and help them start a new life.

The Ekiti Operation Office controls Ekiti, Osun and Ondo States.

Olarewaju said that the palliative showed that the current Federal Government is a supportive and responsive one.

He urged the people to continue to stay together in peace to prevent future occurrence.

“They are mainly farmers who had clashes, and the Federal Government through NEMA felt that it is necessary to give succour to the distressed.

”That is why, after our assessment and all other things, the reports were sent and as a fall out to that exercise, these are the palliatives we are to give to them and let them start a new life.

“It is a goodwill to show that the government is for the people, and responding to the yearnings and aspiration of the people. We pray that this kind of occurrence will not happen again.

“Because all of them are here now, sitting together, taking their palliative together and we believe it will be beginning of good things to come and we won’t have this kind of event again,” he said.

The Secretary, Ondo State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Mr Femi Obideyi, explained that the relief items were given because of the destruction in the two communities during the clash.

Obideyi said the immediate and remote causes of the clash had been addressed by the state government and the two communities had embraced peace.

The secretary, who noted that the people of the state were known to be peace-loving, urged residents to always prevent “man-made” disasters to allow government to focus on its developmental programmes.

Speaking, Pa Ibrahimoh Adamu, one of the beneficiaries, thanked the government for the gesture, noting that the relief materials would go a long way to assist victims of the communal clash.