Niger Govt Warns Riverine Communities Not to Treat NEMA’s Warning with Levity

Laleye Dipo in Minna

The Niger State Government has warned the people living in the riverine areas of the state not to treat the warning of an imminent flood in the areas with levity.

The Commissioner for Information Mr. Jonathan Tsado Vatsa, said the warning became necessary following the discovery by government that the people were not moving to safer grounds as the rains gathered momentum in all parts of the state.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) had named the state among 26 states in the country that could witness severe flooding this year.

This made the state government to ask those around the river banks to move upland.
Vatsa in a statement made available to journalists in Minna at weekend, advised the affected people to move to safer grounds to avoid unnecessary loss of lives and property.

He stated that it was better now that there was early warning mechanism put in place unlike in the past that the flood usually caught the people by surprise, maintaining that the state government would do every thing possible to mitigate the effect of the flood.

Vatsa appealed to traditional rulers and religious as well as community leaders to sustain the sensitisation of the people on the need to take the warning from the emergency management agency very seriously.

“We should not treat the early warning from the authorities with levity; we are calling on the villagers along the flood plains that are prone to flood to move upland so that they will not be caught up by the flood as a result of the overflow of the river.”

He promised that the administration of Governor Abubakar Sani Bello takes the welfare of every body in the state very seriously and would do every thing possible to ensure that all avoidable disasters were well managed for the overall development of the state The commissioner saluted the efforts of all stakeholders especially traditional rulers and local government chairmen in the state for ensuring the management of the early warning from the agencies to eschew losses.

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