The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says it has deployed experts to all 36 states of the Federation, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, to downscale the incidents of flood disasters.
Director-General of NEMA, Mustapha Ahmed, disclosed this yesterday in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state capital, at the flag-off of the downscaling of disaster early warning measures to grassroots for effective life-saving early actions during the 2023 rainy season.
Ahmed said the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and the Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) have released their 2023 Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP) and Annual Flood Outlook (AFO), respectively, early in the year.
According to him, the result indicates that there would be early onset of rainfall and a high probability of flooding across the country hence the need to take proactive measures to mitigate the envisaged disaster.
“The vital documents contained meteorological forecasts indicating early onset of rainfall and high probability of flooding across the country during the year.
“Earlier, as part of our disaster risk communication, we have written letters to all State Governors and responsible partners, drawing their attention to imminent floods and associated secondary hazards during the rainy season to avoid a repeat of what we experienced last year.
“In 2022, Nigeria experienced the most devastating flood in our national history with more than 4 million people affected, over 2 million persons displaced, and a record death of 665 Nigerians. The flood also caused damage and destruction to about 355,986 houses and 944,989 hectares of farmlands.
Speaking further, the NEMA said, “It is on this premise that NEMA drawing from its mandate of disaster risk management, decided to take the initiative of partnering with NIHSA and NiMet to downscale early warning alerts to States, Local Government Authorities and communities at risk of flood disaster and associated hazards.
“We are deploying the same experts from NEMA, NiMet, and NIHSA to all the states of the federation and the FCT to downscale and take the early warning message to all the relevant end users across socio-economic sectors.
“| am very confident that this initiative will enable all responsible actors to take risk-informed decisions to enable them to match early warning with early action, support disaster risk management, safeguard national food security, and engender sustainable socio-economic growth in Nigeria,” he said.
Speaking earlier, the Deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom state, Senator Akon Eyakenyi, said the state will not be caught off guard as it has made preparations to combat flood disasters.
Eyakenyi disclosed that the government has identified the need to build camps for Internally-Displaced Persons(IDPs) in the 31 local government areas of the state as well as train its personnel on disaster management.
Governor Umo Eno, while flagging off the programme announced that the state government has donated a warehouse and offices to NEMA.