Committee On Flood Mitigation in Nigeria submits report

The National Committee on the Harmonization of Reports on Flood Management in Nigeria has submitted its report to Vice President Kashim Shettima.

The event took place on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at the office of the Vice President, within the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Speaking to State House Correspondents soon after he submitted the report, Chairman of the Harmonization Committee, Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, represented by a member of the committee, Professor Emmanuel Adanu, said, if adopted, the report would become a national roadmap on the mitigation of flood in Nigeria.

“There was a committee set up to produce a roadmap for mitigation of flood preparedness, adaptation and response. We were given seven days to complete the project which we did and we have made the submission now.

“In doing so, we had three documents that were produced for flood mitigation response and also preparedness, so we put all these together to come up with a roadmap which we have presented,” he said.

He further explained that in the course of its assignment, the committee noted that contrary to speculation, water released periodically from the neighbouring Republic of Cameroon is not the main cause of floods in Nigeria.

“We have had lots of problems with flooding in Nigeria and we have had lots of misconceptions about the flooding outlook in Nigeria. One of such is the belief that most of the flooding we have in Nigeria used to come from Cameroun; which is totally false and we have tried to explain that very well.

“Because the water that comes from outside into Nigeria is just about 25 or less percent of the total reneging water in Nigeria. So, most of the flooding that we receive originates from within Nigeria due to high rainfall and the mobility of the water around our drainage patterns,” he explained.

Professor Adanu, who is also the Director General, National Water Resources Institute of Nigeria, revealed that the committee also highlighted the positive effect of flooding.

“Flooding also has positive aspects which we should try to build into our economy in terms of structural measures to curb flooding,” he said.

Professor Adanu listed the positive aspects of flooding contained in the roadmap to include agricultural development and power generation among others.

He also said the committee categorized flooding in Nigeria and suggested when a state of emergency can be declared on flood in the country.