It will take 30 years of consistent investment to control the menace of flooding in Nigeria, which has so far left 612 persons dead and 1.4 million displaced, says the Federal Government.
The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, announced this on Wednesday while briefing correspondents on the outcome of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Presidential Villa.
Declaring that nobody can stop flooding in the country, the Minister said that government could only minimize its impact on Nigerians.
The Minister who spoke on a joint presentation to FEC by his ministry and that of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, said despite the early warning system in place, a lot of capital-intensive initiatives remain to be done in future to avert the consequences of flood disasters.
Suleiman said that it is not something that can be achieved under one administration alone.
He said the present administration is already working on a flood management masterplan that will take at least three years to complete.
While noting that flood victims ignored warnings to evacuate, Suleiman also blamed tree felling and degraded soil for the massive impact of this year’s floods in the country.
Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, absolved the federal government from blame for not providing temporary shelters for citizens in vulnerable flood plains who said they had nowhere to go.
According to him, it is the responsibility of states and local governments to do that.
He said from an initial assessment, his ministry has identified 154 places where transport infrastructure worth N80 billion is impaired or damaged by the recent floods in parts of the country.
