‘Another flooding imminent in Nigeria’

By Austin Ogwuda

Asaba — Until there is a West African policy to address how each country within the Economic Community of West African State, ECOWAS, region releases water, the recent flooding that hit the country will occur again.

Delta State Commissioner for Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Antonia Ashiedu,  also a member of the Technical Committee set up by Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan to proffer solution to future flooding, raised the alarm in Asaba, at a colloquium on post-flooding era, organised by Delta Guild of Indigenous Newspaper Publishers, led by Mr. Femi Odonmeta.

*File Photo: Flood victims

She said: “There will be another flood, unless we address this very quickly. There ought to be a West African policy to address how each country releases water. There is the issue of climate change, I concede to that. That, of course, adds to the volume of water we now have in the dams. So, it was between the devil and the deep blue sea. You leave it in the dams, and the dams collapse, we won’t have any country anymore, not even local governments.

“There should be a structured approach to how each country releases water because technology has gone far and you can now predict how much rain you can have in one year, two years, three years. You can actually do that. That is on regional basis.

“If you recall, the rain was not falling much during the period of the flood. Where did the water come from? It came from the dams. That was why the current was unusual. Was it only Cameroon that released water? Of course not.”