The National Emergency Management Agency in collaboration with Kano State government have organized a disaster management program for residents.
Sharing pictures from the ongoing program via its Twitter handle, NEMA stated that it is aimed at downscaling disaster; early warning measures for effective life-saving during rainy season.
It tweeted, “NEMA in collaboration with the Kano state Government Organises a program on Downscaling of Disaster Early Warning Measures to The Grassroots for Effective Life Saving Early Actions During 2023 Rainy season.”
The National Ad-hoc Committee on Flooding, in an earlier report, disclosed that 104,000 houses were destroyed while 172,000 persons were displaced by flood in 2022 while 201 persons died and 108 were injured by the flood across 16 states of the country, including Kano.
Similarly, NEMA revealed that in the year 2022, Kano recorded 23 deaths by flood which also destroyed 14, 496 farmlands across 16 Local Government Areas that were affected in the state.
Gishiri Wuya of Warawa LGA lost 2,248 farmlands comprising hundreds of hectares. The remote village, which comprises of over 500 households, with no school and clinic, is yet to recover from last year’s flood, amidst the prediction of another disaster by the relevant stakeholders in the environment sector.
Daily Trust, in a report dated July 21, 2023, stated that the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, and NEMA in their various predictions, have identified Kano and 31 other states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory as states that fall within the highly probable flood risks areas for 2023.
The report stated that floods in highly probable flood-risk states are expected to be high in terms of impact on the population, agriculture, livelihood, livestock, infrastructure and the environment between April and November. According to the report, Nigeria has traditionally focused on post-disaster flood response rather than risk control that can lessen the impacts of the disaster.
However, despite these warnings, early signals and calls for preventive measures by various stakeholders, residents of the villages in the southern part of the state said nothing has been done yet to cushion the effects of the past 2022 flood disaster.
