NECA Tasks FG to Make Flood Management a National Risk Priority

Dike Onwuamaeze

The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has called on the federal government to make the management of flood risk a national priority in its disaster risk management agenda.

The call was contained in a statement titled: ‘Flood and the Emerging Circumstantial Economic Refugees’, which was issued last  Sunday by the Director-General of NECA, Mr. Adewale Oyerinde, who observed that historically, Nigeria has been more focused on post-disaster flood response than control.

Oyerinde, however, advised the government that henceforth, the task of “reducing and addressing exposure to flood risk should now be a national priority in the government’s disaster risk management agenda.

“Relevant ministries and agencies of government to rally round and support businesses and citizens in ameliorating the loss, while designing appropriate policies in addressing the climate change effects in order to meet the 2050 United Nations declaration on global warming.”

The director-general of NECA stated that “the consequences of the flood on the already fragile economy and pauperised citizens can only be imagined. The destruction of personal and economic infrastructure has invariably created circumstantial economic refugees. While the causes of the floods remain controversial, the reality of billions of naira lost and lives prematurely wiped away cannot be denied.”

According to him, the economic loss of the flood is massive, especially the devastating loss of a 100 hectares of rice farm in Nasarawa State, which is owned by Olam Agric and worth over $140 million, as well as the imminent food and unemployment crisis that these portend.

Oyerinde averred that: “As the citizens grapple with high inflation rate, high cost of living, increasing cost of gas and businesses forced to operate in an increasingly hostile regulatory environment, the flood has further compounded the situation, compelling many to migrate from their abode to other higher grounds with various social, economic and unemployment consequences.”