19th September, 2022
By Ruth Oketunde
Mustapha Ahmed, Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), has said flood killed more than 300 people, injured 500 others and displaced 100,000 others in 2022.
Ahmed announced this at an emergency technical meeting on flood situation in the country on Monday, in Abuja.
He said that the meeting was convened to urgently review emergency situations and plan for further action by all emergency responders.
According to him, the flood disaster affects 29 states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
“Our record indicates that more than 300 lives have been lost, 500 persons are seriously injured with more than 100,000 others displaced and living either in temporary shelters including schools, other public buildings among benevolent host families,” he said.
The director-general said that the agency would continue to work with the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) to downscale impact-based weather forecasts to the public.
He added that all NEMA zonal, territorial and operation offices had been activated to coordinate resources in their areas of responsibilities to respond to any flood situation.
While calling for the support of state governments, Ahmed said that NEMA had prepositioned food and non-food relief items and started deploying them to affected states.
“I call on all relevant frontline responders to intensify their preparedness efforts, carry out early warning targeting the most vulnerable communities, prepare for evacuation to safer ground and provide all other forms of life saving assistance to persons at risk,” he said.
Speaking, Mr Clement Nze, Director-General, Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA), commended NEMA for bringing all stakeholders to brainstorm on how to save the lives and property of Nigerians.
He said that his agency had been following the trend and it was a bit disturbing that the progression of flooding, destruction, loss of lives and property, had been quite humongous.
He, however, called on state governments to take precautionary measures to avoid the impacts of flooding in their states.