The Niger Government has issued a warning to people living and farming around flood-prone areas to relocate to avoid flooding.
The Director-General of the State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), Alhaji Ahmed Inga, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Minna on Wednesday, issued the warning to those living around those areas.
Ahmed said that the agency was using traditional institutions to advise people living in flood-prone areas to stop building structures, or planting crops on waterways.
He said, “Immediately we got the 2019 rainfall predictions by NiMET, we swung into action by embarking on sensitisation, using the traditional institutions to counsel people living and farming in flood-prone areas to seek alternative places’’
“We are using the traditional means of communication because most of these communities do not have access to radio or television; the best way to reach out to them is to use our traditional ways of conveying information’
“Although this year’s rainfall might not be as heavy as that of the previous year, we in Niger do experience flood year in and year out, due to the topography of the state’’.
He equally said that global warming and climate change have aggravated the flood situation in Niger, and had contributed to most flooding experienced in some parts of the state.
He said that the agency was really trying their best to educate the people on the effects of living and farming around riverbanks.
However, he advised, farmers to pay close attention to the NiMET prediction on late start of rainfall and early cessation, stating that they should go for improved seedlings to record bumper harvest.
