No commensurate response to flood warnings by states – NIHSA boss, Nze

In this interview, the Director-General, Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, Clement Nze, tells Okechukwu Nnodim that state governments are not showing commensurate response to mitigate floods in their domains despite warnings

Tell us the major causes of flooding as experienced in many parts of the country recently.

Rainfall is the major causative factor of flooding and this is also confirmed by the predictions of NiMet (Nigeria Meteorological Services Agency). Due to climate change variability in Nigeria this year, 2021, there had been delayed onset of the raining season.

In other words, when they mention that it will start in the month of April, it might end up starting sometime in May. And there is also early cessation of the raining season from the forecast of NiMet. This leaves us with few months of raining season.

Therefore the rainfall that is supposed to spread over a period of about five to six months, will now be concentrated within a few number of months. When such happens, as is already happening, that will translate to heavy flooding. The rainfall that is supposed to occur for about five months now occurs in three months.

The capacity of the earth to carry it will not be there and it will give rise to flooding and that is what is playing out now.

We are seeing delayed onset and it is expected that there will be early cessation.

So if the rainfall that is expected to fall for about six months now fall in four months, the impact will be heavy on the environment. This is because while the earth is trying to take in the one that has come, more and more rains keep coming within a short period of time.

Also, it is important to state that Nigeria is located within the River Niger Basin and there are nine countries in that basin. All the countries are upstream while Nigeria is downstream.

Whenever there is rainfall within this basin, it will all concentrate and start coming into Nigeria. From Guinea, Mali, Niger, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, the waters all come down to Nigeria, entering through Kebbi State. And on River Benue side, water move from Cameroon and Chad into Nigeria.

Their flooding season is usually during August and September. So as an agency, we meet with the Niger Basin Authority, where we monitor the entire river system in the basin and we brief the country.

What is the way forward?

Our advice to states is that they should clear their drainage systems, remove weeds, water hyacinths and desilt canals as well as small rivers within the cities or communities.

We are in touch with the dam operators and so when heavy flood is coming from Niamey, Niger, for instance, we will inform Kainji Dam in Niger State about it and proffer measures on what should be done.

There is also the need to construct heavy barriers to hold back rivers from over-flowing their banks.

How would you describe responses to predictions by NIHSA?

There are levels of responsibilities; you try the best you can to play your own role in the whole chain. For us at the federal level, you mainly have the forecasting agencies such as NiMet and NIHSA. We try as much as possible to cascade the information to the states.

The National Emergency Management Agency is the first agency that we avail our predictions to, so as to help them in their emergency preparedness. They in turn have other people they work with in the states, as each state has its own state emergency management agency.

The level they collaborate to ensure that their own zones or states are not at risk has a lot to do to prevent these year-in year-out disasters that occur.

Are state governments taking the necessary precautions, going by your recommendations?

For us as an agency we are having a feel that governments at different levels, especially the states, are becoming increasingly aware and desiring to do the needful. But largely, when it comes to something on ground, as an agency we don’t think that there is commensurate response to the things we have been doing.

The Minister of Water Resources personally wrote letters to each of the state governors, including the Federal Capital Territory minister, outlining the Local Government Areas in these states that are largely to be affected. I doubt if anything was done.

What we often see is fire brigade approach, like what happened in Jalingo, where the governor was in Abuja, but ran back to Taraba when the flood incident occurred recently. I doubt if anything was done prior to that, likewise what happened in Keffi, Nasarawa State.

You will then ask, what and what were done after the prediction by NIHSA was released and the states were informed? So, most likely nothing tangible was done.

You earlier talked about how water from other eight countries in the Niger Basin move into Nigeria. Is there any form of collaboration among these nations on how to manage this water movement?

The countries in the basin are nine in number including Nigeria. Under the Niger Basin Authority, with headquarters in Niamey, which coordinates these nine countries in terms of water resources development, there is collaboration among the member nations.

It is such that before any country would envisage any project, you must seek clearance from other countries. Take for instance, if Niger wants to build a dam in Niger Republic, if Nigeria says no, they will not build that dam.

Under the shared vision of the authority, they will tell you that it is one basin, nine countries, one vision. Even at times we do complain that we are downstream before the Atlantic, why will you disturb us when we want to build any structure on River Niger or River Benue, we don’t need to take permission from you. But under the shared vision and collaboration in the Niger Basin Authority, we need to notify them and they have to agree with us.

Mali, for instance, wanted to build some works from River Niger to supply water to so many communities in that country. They had to write to Nigeria to permit them to do that. So, there is collaboration among the nine countries.

In 2012, Cameroon notified Nigeria that it would be opening its dam on a particular date but in about three days to that date, their Lagdo Dam was overwhelmed and was getting to a dangerous level. They had to open their gates and that was what caused the massive flooding in Nigeria in 2012, which happened to be the highest flood destruction record experienced in this country in may be about 100 years. But that is to the level they can do.

To avoid their dam from collapsing, they had to open their gates. So ours is to take some measures, such as relocating the people in areas where the water would hit much, because we don’t have our own dam that could have been closed to absorb whatever was coming from Cameroon. So ours could be contingency measures.

What should the Nigerian government do at this level, in terms of establishing a facility capable of absorbing the volume of water from Lagdo?

The Lagdo Dam in Cameroon was built between 1977 and 1982 to hold 7.6 billion cubic litres of water and they (Cameroon) advised Nigeria to build its own dam. They stated then that if their dam becomes too heavy it will be opened. Nigeria’s own dam remains on the drawing board – the Dasin Hausa Dam.

Dasin Hausa is a community in Fufore Local Government Area of Adamawa State and the dam is supposed to be about 16 billion cubic litres, more than twice the size of that of Cameroon, such that if the one in Cameroon should break, ours will capture whatever is coming.

So in the interim, our advice, especially to state governments, is that you can build earth dams on those major tributaries of River Benue in Nigeria.

We have, for instance, a the Kashimbilla Dam on Katsina Alla River, as this river contributes about 27 per cent of the volume of water in River Benue. So with Kashimbilla Dam on Katsina Alla River, which enters into River Benue, we can reduce what is coming into River Benue.

There are other rivers, such as Gongola and so on, tributaries of River Benue within Nigeria that we can dam and then reduce the amount of water that is entering into River Benue proper.

The federal and state governments could do this, but the cost may not be so much and that is why I believe the state governments can undertake it. The dams will enhance their irrigation and hydropower projects in their domains.

We also advise on the need for diversion canals that are certain meters wide and deep running several kilometers to virgin lands where large reservoirs could be built. So as River Niger or Benue flows, it will divert to such places and there are so many benefits this can provide.

The Jabi Lake here in Abuja is not a natural lake. It was created and it has gone a long way to cushion the atmosphere of that area. So many businesses are taking place within the Jabi Lake environment; you have Shoprite there, picnic centres, and if you take a photograph of that area, you will see how the atmosphere there is pleasant.

Also, the underground water in that area and surrounding areas has been increased, that if you drill a borehole, the yield is commendable because it is being recharged with the water coming from the lake.

So, Kebbi, Niger, Kogi, Adamawa, Benue, Taraba and Kwara could do a number of such diversion canals to reduce what flows to the major river channel.

Does NIHSA have the required equipment to adequately cover the country in terms climate monitoring?

NIHSA, through its annual budgets, do have provisions for procurement of equipment. The issue is that the country is too large; so many things are also competing for the resources.

Going by the World Meteorological Organisation’s recommendation for Nigeria, taking into account Nigeria’s land mass and topography, we are supposed to have a minimum of 482 hydrological stations gauging our rivers. And in some strategic locations, we put other equipment that measure other weather parameters apart from gauging the rivers.

So in a bid to see that we step up our instrumentation or covering the land mass of Nigeria, we do seek for assistance from within and outside Nigeria.

NIHSA, for instance, seeks assistance through NEWMAP, which is the Nigerian Erosion and Watershed Management Project. We took active part in their regular activities and so the agency benefitted by way of getting operational vehicles, computers and other things such as acoustic doplar current profilers.

Also, we get support through another project assisted by the World Bank and known as Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria Project. About 19 monitoring wells have been done for NIHSA and over 36 hydrological stations have been established to measure surface water.

So, what I am saying is that our annual budget can’t carry what we need to cover the entire nation and therefore we seek for collaboration and assistance from other agencies of government and outside Nigeria. PUNCH