On Thursday, the National Economic Council ordered the National Emergency Management Agency to offer immediate assistance and support to flood-affected states.
It also decided to create and present a plan for handling flooding and managing related crises. After the 136th NEC meeting, which took place at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, confirmed this to State House reporters.
Wike claimed that based on the severity of the damage, Yahaya Bello, the governor of Kogi State and chairman of the Committee on the Impact of Flood and Disaster Across the States in Nigeria, divided the states into A, B, and C.
Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Rivers, Enugu, Kano, Oyo, Yobe, and Zamfara are among the Group A states with above 15 points and the most affected.
Cross River, Delta, Jigawa, Kwara, and Ondo are the Group B states with between 10 and 15 points.
Katsina, Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, and the FCT are the states in Group C with less than 10 points.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 4.2 million Nigerians could be uprooted by 2023.The forecast was included in the IOM’s 2023 Nigeria Response Overview Disaster Preparedness Plan, which was created in response to the nation’s increasing vulnerability to climate-related disaster.
Despite the fact that Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, is accustomed to yearly flooding, the floods of 2022, which UNICEF reports affected 3.2 million people (including 1.9 million children), were the worst in a decade. According to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development, floods caused more than 1.4 million people to be displaced, over 603 people to die, and more than 2,400 people to be injured in October 2022. Moreover, 676,000 hectares of farmland were harmed, and over 82,035 homes sustained damage.
700,000 of the displaced people were in Bayelsa State, where 300 towns were swamped by floods following heavy rainfall.
Between August and November 2022, over 257 medical facilities and educational institutions were destroyed in Jigawa, the worst-affected of the 34 states impacted. Late in January, the former president Muhammadu Buhari visited the roads, bridges, and communities that had been impacted by the flood calamity that had hit parts of the Miga, Jahun, Kiyawa, Dutse, and Birnin Kudu Local Government Areas of Jigawa.
The FCT minister spoke to reporters on Thursday and stated, “Today, the Committee gave its preliminary report and emphasized to the council their inability to reach out to all the states because some states have already paid the effects of the flood in their respective states. As a result, we are unable to get in touch with the Committee’s technical staff. Three categories—Category A, Category B, and Category C—were developed. NEC decided to create an intervention strategy and instructed NEMA to offer immediate assistance for relief to affected states. The NEC will work with the Nigeria Governors Forum Chairman to establish and communicate the roadmap”.
