Mohammed Shosanya
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA),has disclosed that the current trend of flooding across the country has indicated that 29 States and 172 Local Government Areas have been impacted by flooding, affecting 1,048,312 people, displaced 625,239 and have led to the death of 259 lives.
The Director General of NEMA, Mrs Zubaida Umar,who stated this on Thursday in Abuja during national emergency coordination forum meeting in Abuja emphasized that the current challenge with Borno on the searchlight currently require coordinated response.
“The current trend of flooding indicated that 29 States and 172 LGAs have been impacted by flooding, affecting 1,048,312 people, displaced 625,239 and have led to the death of 259 lives. This unfortunate and almost unexpected incident requires coordinated response, hence the call for this emergency meeting.
“As you may all be aware, flood has ravaged many parts of the country with devastating impact in some locations. The latest of which is that of Borno State, where Search and Rescue is currently being carried out by emergency workers,” she said.
She,however,maintained that flood predictions across Nigeria for this year had earlier been disseminated to various stakeholders by NEMA and other agencies of government saddled with this responsibility.
“Though the flooding may not be totally prevented, efforts are being made to mitigate the impact to the barest minimum.
” This occurrence is not in total deviation from the predictions as contained in this year’s Annual Flood Outlook released by NIHSA which informed that in the months of July to September, 2024, 33 States and 135 LGAs are within flood high-risk areas, while the period between October and November has 19 States and 44 LGAs.
“The Federal Government through NEMA commiserates with those that have been affected by the flood disaster and assures them that necessary succour will be provided accordingly.
The main reasons for conveying this meeting therefore are to receive update on the flood situation and to assign roles and responsibilities to all stakeholders to ensure we are all on the same page.”
She said,as part of on-going efforts, Internally Displaced Persons camps have been activated in some states;” additional staff have been deployed to support Search and Rescue operations; water purification and critical Search and Rescue equipment have been deployed to affected states; while food and non food items are also being provided to support the affected persons.
“To complement these efforts, plans are underway to: provide additional relief intervention including medical consumables and medicaments; deploy additional water purifiers; support States to evacuate people at risk; provide additional support to Naval Disaster Response Units; provide additional support for sectoral response; relocate and rehabilitate the displaced population and to carry out in- depth Damage and Loss assessment among others.”
Appreciating the support of international partners, the NEMA DG noted that the situation is not yet overwhelming for the Government of Nigeria to cope with.
She said:”We,however,encourage partners to continue to carry out their routine assistance to affected people while still monitoring the situation”.