…says govt resources cannot support dredging of rivers
NOSA EGHAGHA
At least, 30 years of consistent investment is needed to control the menace of flooding in Nigeria, says Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu.
The flooding currently troubling the country is estimated to have left 612 persons dead and over 1.4 million displaced in recent times.
Adamu stated this yesterday while briefing State House Correspondents on the outcome of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
This comes less than 24 hours after President Muhammadu Buhari gave the Ministers of Water Resources, Transportation and other stakeholders a 90-day deadline to develop a masterplan to check cases of flooding in the country.
Absolving the government of any major blames in the recent flooding incidents, Adamu said nobody can stop flooding in the country, especially when there is no technology to that effect.
He noted that early warning signs were given to vulnerable Nigerians to leave such environment but many reneged, insisting that government could only minimise the impact of flood on Nigerians.
The Minister spoke on a joint presentation to FEC by his ministry and that of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, said despite the early warning system in place, a lot of capital-intensive initiatives remain to be done in future to avert the consequences of flood disasters.
“There is no technology on Earth, none that can tell you the extent of the floods, none whatsoever. You work on the basis of data that you have before. Now that the rains have come that is what hydrology is all about, this is a record and now we’re resetting the clock. So that our future plans will now consider that this is the historical catastrophic level that we will not account for, that is what engineering does. This has never happened before,” he said.
Suleiman went further to explain that destilting a river, as precautionary measures would cost the government billions of cubic metres of earth or soil or sand.
He said to start with, where do you deposit it? And I can tell you the level of the economy of the country, it cannot support that kind of thing at this point in time. But there are natural base solutions. One of the key things we can do just simple planting of trees, catchment management will reduce the problem.
“There are rivers that we were able to descend right now as I’m talk to you farther down eastern parts of the Jigawa state into Yobe state we have been opening river channels on River Hadeja all the way down to Kamadugu Yobe linking into Chad. That is possible for some rivers. For a river like river Niger, you need much more than that you need what we call river training.
“That is not only an expensive venture, but it’s also a long term venture. And what we’re trying to do at this point in time under this administration is to prepare at least initiate the preparation of that masterplan.
“The study alone to prepare that Masterplan will take a minimum of three years by our estimate, like I mentioned in my report, just dealing with river Niger and Benue alone, this river training that we’re talking will include dredging to provide an irrigational channel and also creating banks or levies on the banks to protect shore protection to prepare to prevent against flooding, just a rule of funds estimate that we did, it will cost about $14 billion and it will take years to implement,” the Water resources minister noted.
Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, absolved the federal government from blame for not providing temporary shelters for citizens in vulnerable flood plains who said they had nowhere to go.
According to him, it is the responsibility of states and local governments to do that.
He said from an initial assessment, his ministry has identified 154 places where transport infrastructure worth N80 billion is impaired or damaged by the recent floods in parts of the country.
Fashola said, “You see, first of all, let us be clear, this is not a Nigerian, unique problem, we see this all over the world. It’s a human issue. At least let us dimension that whether it was in Pakistan, Florida, this early warnings were issued.
“Some people left, some people didn’t leave. There are human issues. So let’s just understand, first of all, is a human issue and let us not situate it as a Nigerian problem. Now also realise that there are levels of government involved here. There is a federal government, there is a state government, there are 36 of them. And there are 774, local governments, those places relating to who builds where, who sets up the house, of course are local planning issues that are not the responsibility of the federal government.
“As my colleague in water resources has said, one of the things his ministry has done is to share the Flood Warning System, is a big, pro marker that shows that when water reaches this level, you’re safe, if it gets to the yellow level is a warning to run. Those are some of the things government does. And it doesn’t mean everybody will relocate.
“But as we speak here, some people didn’t not relocate, some might have. But the job we have to do now is to bring relief to those who are impacted. That’s our job now. So recriminating about what happened yesterday, doesn’t solve the problem. And what we have come to brief you about are the steps being taken to make life livable, easy for the survivors, to commiserate with those who have lost people and property and to plan a way to make life better for tomorrow. What we have lost yesterday is gone. Let’s stop recriminating about it. And let’s focus on how we can ensure that we’re in a better position today and tomorrow and beyond”.
The Humanitarian Affairs Minister debunked insinuations that the government showed no sign of preparedness to address the flooding.
She said, “To say that the ministries were not prepared for this emergency or this disaster that was about to happen, it’s not correct. Because we have reposition our warehouses to take stock of deployment as approved by His Excellency, Mr. President to be handed over to the ministry and we have deployed this grains to the respective states that we expect this flood is going to happen. So to say that we were not prepared is really not correct. We did our best and we are still doing what we’re supposed to do.”
