Niger Govt issues urgent relocation order as Dams set to release excess water

By Wole Mosadomi, Minna

Minna — The Niger State Government has issued an urgent directive to communities surviving downstream of the Shiroro, Jebba, Kainji, and Zungeru hydroelectric dams to relocate immediately, pursuing notifications that the facilities are acceptable to discharge excess water.

The warning, communicated done the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), comes aft dam authorities alerted that the discharge of h2o could trigger catastrophic flooding crossed respective riverine communities successful the state.

In a connection released successful Minna, NSEMA Director General, Alhaji Abdullahi Baba Arah, cautioned that the measurement of h2o to beryllium released — moving into thousands of gallons per infinitesimal — could pb to an overflow of Rivers Niger and Kaduna, posing sedate risks to lives and property.

“We are advising our communities to bounds activities astir stream banks during this highest rainy play and relocate to safer grounds already identified,” Arah declared.

He added that the Nigerian Hydrological Services had besides warned that radical surviving on Rivers Niger and Kaduna should urgently determination to safer areas to debar being caught successful the expected flooding.

The NSEMA brag further disclosed that the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has predicted that the extremity of the rainy play volition beryllium accompanied by convulsive windstorms, urging residents to debar sheltering nether trees during rainfall and to enactment distant from anemic oregon substandard structures.

Already, respective parts of Niger State person begun to consciousness the interaction of flooding, with reports of houses, farmlands, bridges, and roads washed away. Some section authorities areas, including Lavun, Magama, Rafi, Kontagora, Gbako, Mokwa, Lapai, Katcha, Agaie, Suleja, Shiroro, Mashegu, Agwara, Bida, Edati, Munya, Bosso, Chanchaga, Paikoro, and Wushishi, person been severely affected.

The catastrophe has besides displaced galore residents and disrupted socio-economic activities. Although Alhaji Arah confirmed that lives person been lost, helium did not supply circumstantial figures.

The authorities authorities has truthful appealed to residents successful high-risk communities to heed relocation directives to forestall further tragedies arsenic h2o discharge from the dams begins.

The station Niger Govt issues urgent relocation bid arsenic Dams acceptable to merchandise excess water appeared archetypal connected Vanguard News.