Floods have wreaked havoc in many states of the country.
By Emma Ogbuehi
President Muhammadu Buhari, on Friday, directed the Minister of Water Resources, Engineer Suleiman Hussein Adamu, to lead and coordinate with the Ministries of Environment and Transportation as well as state governments to develop a comprehensive plan of action for preventing flood disaster in Nigeria.
According to a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, the President’s directive, which was conveyed to the Minister in a letter signed by his Chief of Staff, Prof Ibrahim Gambari, said the plan should be presented to him in 90 days.
The statement further said that President Buhari is regularly receiving updates on the flooding situation in the country and restates his commitment towards addressing the challenges caused by the disaster.
Floods have wreaked havoc in many states of the country.
No fewer than 600 persons have lost their lives and 1.3 million rendered homeless as a result of the devastating floods across 34 states in Nigeria, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.
UNICEF, in a statement on Friday by its Representative in Nigeria, Cristian Munduate, said over 200,000 houses have been destroyed by floods in the affected states.
According to UNICEF, 2.5 million people in Nigeria are in need of humanitarian assistance – 60 per cent of which are children – and are at increased risk of waterborne diseases, drowning and malnutrition due to the most severe flooding in the past decade.
The Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, said over the weekend that the country ought to have declared floods disaster emergency in some areas of the country.
Obi who made the observation on the basis of his experience with the devastating impacts in some states and communities across the country, noted that the damage was much, the havoc enormous and beyond states and individuals.
“The infrastructural damage caused by flood is extensive,” he stated.
Obi who paused his campaign to enable him empathize with the victims of the flood disaster in some states of the federation has visited Benue, Bayelsa and Anambra states, stressing that the Federal Government ought to have declared national emergency on the natural disaster.