Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Half a million displaced by Nigerian floods

Abdulkadir Badsha Mukhtar in AllAfrica.com via the Daily Trust (Nigeria): The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has confirmed that about 500,000 Nigerians have been displaced due to the devastating floods so far recorded in the year as at last month. The Director General of the Agency Alhaji Mohammed Sani-Sidi disclosed this yesterday during an assessment tour of flooded communities in Bayelsa State.

Sani-Sidi said, "The country witnesses the debilitating effects of flooding with states like Sokoto, Jigawa, Kebbi, Nassarawa, Lagos, Ogun, Cross River and Akwa Ibom recording an incidence rate in which a total of about 500,000 Nigerians have been displaced and their properties and means of livelihood washed away".

A statement from Yushau A. Shuaib, NEMA's Head of Press and Public Relations, quoted the director general as saying that the recent weather patterns in the country and indeed the world had resulted in adverse ecological imbalances, adding, "We are now victims of this fate wherever you go; North; South; East or West". He observed that although flooding in communities along the Niger trough and coastal communities is not new, what is however more worrisome is the severity of these cases as witnessed in Amassoma, Odi, Tombia, Sagbama and the extreme weather conditions experienced globally due to climate change….

A 1911 postcard of Lokoja in Nigeria, with the Benue River in the background

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