President Bola Tinubu has expressed concern over the devastating floods in some parts of the country, assuring that adequate support would be provided for the affected states.
Vice President Kashim Shettima who gave the assurance on behalf of the President, said he would rush down to Maiduguri shortly, where the whole city is flooded.
Although he noted that the situation is not peculiar to one part of the country, as it is also ravaging other states like Bayelsa and Sokoto.
While commiserating with the people, Shettima pledged the government’s commitment to ameliorating the situation.
His words: “I want to use this forum to commiserate with the people of our great nation over the flood disasters we are recording all across the length and breadth of this nation.
“After this meeting with the directive of the President I will rush to Maiduguri, the whole city has been overtaken by flood.
“It is not peculiar to one part of the country; we are facing this challenge right from Bayelsa to Sokoto.
“Be rest assured that the President has the nation at heart, and we will do whatever it takes to savage the state of affairs.”
It would be recalled that in April this year, the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA), an agency under the supervision of the Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, alerted through its 2024 Annual Flood Outlook (AFO) of an impending flood in the country.
NIHSA has the responsibility for the provision of information on flood forecasts, alerts, and monitoring of all the major rivers in Nigeria, including the transboundary Rivers Niger and Benue.
The Outlook shows that 148 LGA in 31 states fall within the high flood risk, while 249 LGA fall within the moderate flood risk areas, with the remaining 377 LGA falling within the low flood risk areas.
The high flood risk states predicted were Adamawa, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross-River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara and the FCT.
The 2024 AFO was further elaborated into three scenarios, taking into consideration the hydrological year and the onset of the rains in Nigeria.
In scenario I, the agency predicted that for the months of April–June (AMJ), 72 LGAs would be at high flood risk, while 63 LGAs would face moderate flood risk.
In Scenario II, for the months of July–September (JAS), 135 LGAs and 221 LGAs are likely to be impacted by high and moderate flood risks, respectively.
Scenario III, for the months of October–November (ON), 44 LGAs and 100 LGAs were predicted to be in high and moderate flood risk zones.
To avert the ugly flooding menace of the past years, the state governments were alerted, a stakeholders meeting was convened, and measures were rolled out for them to follow.
Sadly, the advice fell on deaf ears as no preventive measures were put in place by most of the state governments to avert the flood related disasters in their domains.
This is to show that lessons were not learnt from the previous experiences. For instance, in 2022, October precisely, the floods affected 34 out of the 36 states. Killed over 600, injured over 2,400, and displaced more than 1.4 million people.
It also destroyed over 300,000 houses and 569,251 hectares of firm land, worsening the food insecurity in the country. In addition, the nation lost an estimated $6.68 billion (N4.2 trillion) to the 2022 floods.
In 2023, the story is not any better, as the country lost about $4.6 billion to floods, according to the report by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet).
