‘Over 100 communities hit in a day’ — NEMA expresses concern over flood statistics

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has expressed concern over the country’s current flood statistics.

According to NAN, Mustapha Ahmed, director-general of NEMA, spoke on Wednesday at a workshop, which featured disaster risk management stakeholders, in Abuja.

Ahmed said the country has recorded the worst cases of flood across the country in 2022.

According to him, Nigeria may not achieve the global agenda on sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030 owing to flood, windstorm, epidemic, conflict and banditry.

“If you look at the statistics this year, floods that have hit communities are the worst. We get more than 50 alerts and more than 100 communities are hit in just one day,” he said.

“So, the situation is very bad and it keeps on going up, but we pray that in the next few weeks, things will recede.”

The director-general said NEMA will intervene in emergencies across communities when the disaster is beyond the capacity of the local and state governments.

He, however, urged the local and state governments to be more responsive in tackling flooding.

“Disaster management, as they say, is local. When it happens, it hits a community within a local government, within a state,” he said.

“So, the first responders are always the local government and we have to stress the need for them to set up local emergency management committees.

“NEMA cannot be in every community in Nigeria; the local government must step in first, then the state, and when their capacity is exceeded, then NEMA comes.”