The Nasarawa State Emergency Management Agency (NASEMA) has appealed to flood-prone local government areas and riverine communities to take precautionary measures against flood and adhere strictly to 2023 predictions.Mr Zachary Allumaga, Director-General of the agency, gave the advice while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lafia.
According to him, 2023 flood Prediction by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency and other actors within the sphere of climate change particularly flood, show that there might be flood from March to April.
Allumaga further said that the prediction included months of August, September and October to experience yet another flood.
He explained that Nasarawa State, unfortunately like a few others, was prone to flood because of its boundary with River Benue in the southern part of the state, hence whenever the river rose, it affected the state.
He said, in light of the prediction, the Agency had started sensitising and communicating to flood-prone local government areas and riverine communities, on the need to take precautions and be on alert.
The director-general particularly warned those who built structures on waterways to dismantle them to give way for easy and free flow of water.
“The agency’s duty is both preventive and curative, having been warned that is real and is going to happen, we sensitise them; this is likely to happen to get ready, when it happens we can evacuate them to the high grounds we have identified.
“Our messages are particularly directed at people who had experienced flood, rain and wind storms in their communities, and those areas we know that are likely to happen as a result of environmental degradation.
“Those who like farming by the river should stop it now and look for somewhere else to farm because flood is likely to wash them off, it happened last year where yam and rice farms were washed away,” he said.
On recent wind and rain storm destruction in Nassarawa local government, he said Gov. Abdullahi Sule had visited the two communities of Nguchu and Ara where more than 100 houses were affected and donated N10 million to each of the communities.
Allumaga said the Agency had already gone there to assess the level of destruction with a view to assisting affected households with building materials to rebuild their houses.
The director-general said arrangements had been concluded to return the victims of Doka bombing who were currently taking temporary shelter in some communities in the three LGAs of Keana, Obi and Doma.
“We have identified where they came from and wrote that they should be relocated; we are waiting for the money to be released from the office of Accountant General of the state, then we can take them back home,” he said.
