Flood: Two Residence Approach Recommended for People Living in Riverine Areas

Laleye Dipo in Minna

As a result of the attachment of people in the riverine areas to their ancestral homes, a two residence approach has been recommended as solution to the annual displacement of the people from their homes as a result of flood.

The suggestion entailed that the riverine people should retain their homes in the river beds while also having homes upland where they can relocate to as a result of flood.

The Director General of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), Mr. Ibrahim Ahmed Inga, made the suggestion in Minna yesterday in a message he sent to a one-day stakeholders workshop organised by the Hydro Power Producing Areas Development Commission (HYPPADEC).

Inga said that the two-residence approach has been experimented in some flood prone areas of the state and found to have reduced the number of casualties associated with flooding.

Inga who was represented by the Director in Charge of Resettlement in the Agency, Mr. Garba Salihu, also told the meeting that the state government through the agency has established 11 resettlement sites across flood prone areas, adding that the resettlements were provided with basic health facilities which have be handed over to the ministry of Health as well as educational institutions.

The Managing Director of HYPPADEC, Mr. Abubakar Sadiq Yelwa, in an address disclosed that all the HYPPADEC states have been predicted to suffer one form of flooding or the other during this year’s rainy season and therefore asked people in the riverine areas to prepare against the eventuality.

Yelwa disclosed that the commission would soon meet with farmers and ministry of Agriculture officials in the five states on how to introduce early maturing farm inputs that will be planted and harvested before the period predicted for floods to set in saying the step will make the farmers to reap the benefit of their labour.

He also disclosed that the commission had intervened in several areas to mitigate the sufferings of flood victims, adding that 17 blocks of three classrooms have been constructed in the state while contract for another 17 will be awarded soon.

The Emir of Agaie, Alhaji Yussuf Nuhu, in an address, said that all the traditional rulers in the affected local government areas are appreciative of the various interventions by the commission but said the problems are enormous and should step up its support.