No fewer than 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are to be severely impacted by River flooding which will begin by the end of July, the Federal Government has warned.
The government also warned that the flooding might escalate the spread of cholera presently ravaging some states.
According to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), cholera outbreak has resulted in 63 deaths and 2,102 suspected cases.
Addressing newsmen on the flooding situation in the country, yesterday, the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Professor Joseph Utsev, said what the country has experienced since May was flash/urban floods resulting from high rainfall intensities of long duration, poor and blocked drainage systems in the urban areas, adding that from the end of July, the country might start experiencing River flooding, which might be more devastating.
He mentioned states at high risk to include Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Benue, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Jigawa, Kogi, Kebbi, Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa, Ondo, Ogun, Rivers, Taraba states, and the FCT
According to the Minister, the country is at the lowest portion of the River Niger Basin, which means that once the upper catchment of the Basin gets flooded, Nigeria should be prepared to experience flooding incidents.
On the Lagdo dam situation in Cameroon, the Minister said the operators had informed the country that they are currently filling the dam for hydropower generation, adding that the flow situation at Wuroboki is relatively normal and there is no cause for alarm.
On what the government was doing to mitigate the annual flooding from the release of water from the Lagdo dam, the Minister said arrangements were almost completed to build buffer dams along the water channel to camp water from the dam. He said the designs of those dams had been done and that the government was almost at the implementation stage. On cholera, the minister warned that increasing flooding may worsen the ravaging outbreak, adding that a presidential committee has been set up to see how the outbreak can be tackled.
He said the committee was also looking at open defecation, which according to him, is another causal factor for cholera.
The minister urged the state, local governments, other stakeholders, and the public to take measures to prevent the ugly flooding menace of the past years.
