Flood Disaster: Ministry Director Exposes Top Secrets

Flood Disaster: Ministry Director Exposes Top Secrets

OpenLife Nigeria reports that following the flood from the River Niger that has overflowed onto the Lokoja-Abuja road, houses and farmlands have been submerged, causing many to flee from their houses as they seek safety.

The floods, as witnessed by many, have led to gridlock and delayed journeys for travellers plying the route.
Over the years, similar flood disasters have played out in different parts of the country, wrecking havoc on livelihoods.

This unceasing developments have agitated Nigerians who are concerned about affected parties and businesses due to the flood, hence, they are calling on the government to find a solution before more damage occurs, specifically, in the current state of Kogi State.
Meanwhile, Kogi State Government, in a statement, has advised motorists to seek alternative routes.
Reacting on his Facebook wall, Sam Amadi, former Chief Executive Officer, National Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, heaped the entire blame on federal government saying the Minister, whose responsibility is to deploy both preventive and rescue measures has gone to sleep on duty.
In the write up titled “Not Living Up to the Name,” Amadi said:

Many years ago Prof Ali Mazrui wrote about the crisis of development in Africa in the terms of tokenism. According to him, Africans follow a fad but mostly miss out on its essence. At a public forum at MIT, he illustrated the point with the idea of wearing watch but never telling the time. I have discovered that this is true about much of our life.Think about it. We have a ministry that is responsible for disasters and emergencies. But since the flooding has been destroying life and property across at least 20 states of the federation, we are yet to hear about interventions by the Ministry. But you will hear about the ministry when they want to share money. The Minister does not yet realize that it is for this moment that she was made a minister. We like to answer a name but will not do what that name suggests.It is all about following a fad, answering a name and not bothering to live up to it.

This submission, however, generated lots of reactions, some of which pointed accusing fingers on the Minister of Humanitarian and her lame duck disposition to her responsibilities.
However, Engineer Clem Nze, a top executive in the Ministry of Science and Technology offered different overview of the situation, heaping the blames on state governors who he accuses of abandoning actionable policies.
Nze wrote: Incidentally, the responsibility to predict and issue warnings on flood scenarios across the country before the onset of the rainy season, falls squarely on my shoulders. I’m the Director General/CEO of Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA), the agency of the Federal Government charged with the responsibility of, among others, the prediction and issuance of Flood Early Warning alerts across the country before the rains set in. The content of this prediction is summarized in the Annual Flood Outlook (AFO) publication, detailing the level of severity or otherwise of flood in each LGA in the country. The supervising Minister goes further to write each state Governor giving specific locations in his very state that are likely to be inundated by flood in the course of the year. Actionable measures that should be taken ahead of time to forestall or reduce the impact of the predicted flood incidents are well laid out before the State Governors. The experience we have been faced with over the years is that the sub-nationals usually do little or nothing to forestall the devastations that accompany flood,” he said.