By Mustapha Baba

Sir: On May 6, at the public presentation of the 2021 Annual Flood Outlook (AFO) of the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA), Nigeria’s Minister of Water Resources and Rural Development, Sulaiman Adamu forewarned that 28 states and the FCT are likely to experience more devastating floods from the end of August to early October.

The prediction of the NIHSA has since become true as severe flooding have stricken some states like Lagos, Nasarawa, Katsina, Bauchi, Benue, Anambra, Kwara, Kaduna, Rivers, Enugu, Borno and Ondo states as a result of heavy rainfalls compounded by lack of drainage networks, annual release of water from the Cameroonian Lagdo Dam and lack of holding dams.

Even the recent flooding in Lagos and some areas of Ogun State on July 16, , is associated with the heavy rainfall in the Southwest, more especially when the Oyan Dam near Abeokuta is open to release water. On July 19, the Managing Director of the Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority said, “In September, 2021, we may likely increase our water releases to an average of seven to nine million cubic meters (mcm) per day while at the same time preparing for the main flood in October”.

Optimistically, the significance of dams cannot be underestimated towards averting ferocious floods, boosting irrigation farming, generating hydroelectric power and providing water for domestic activities. Hence, apart from state-owned dams, Nigeria is fortuitously endowed with more than 323 large, medium and small abandoned federal-owned dams deserving to be completed and revived and reconstructed.

When these multipurpose dam projects are completed, they are indeed capable of arresting the incessant floods properly across the flashpoints as they have capacity of restoring more than 30 billion cubic metres of water as pointed out by the Minister of Water Resources and Rural Development, Sulaiman Adamu. Cumulatively, Nigeria has more than 900 dams.

Read Also: Flooding: ‘Lagos ready for eventualities’

Sadly, if we could recall, on Monday, December 12, 2016, at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Food Crisis Prevention Network held in Abuja, President Buhari pledged that his administration would construct additional 400 dams to boost irrigation farming before the expiration of his first tenure across the 36 states and the FCT.

I do not know what barred PMB from executing the long-awaited game-charger projects more especially in terms of averting Nigeria’s nagging incessant floods, addressing the threat of youth unemployment  and invigorating the tottering economy.

Now, Nigerians have over the years been looking forward to having patriotic, visionary and considerate leaders capable of constructing a holding dam across River Niger, River Benue and the course of the Lagdo Dam in Cameroon to mitigate the annual petrifying floods bred by the release of the dam.

To sum up, water is the greatest blessing provided for us by our God. But it is agonizing how Nigeria’s leaders are unfortunately incapable of restoring water in its countless dams and turning them into long-lived natural resources or its oil sector for the next generations because of their recklessness and lack of strategic visionary planning. Nigeria is indeed in dire need of patriotic and discerning leaders to embark upon diverting rainy-season water to the Lake Chad Basin to rescue it from continuous shrinking as a result of climate change. These insightful leaders must also dredge Nigeria’s rivers, create more artificial storages, and construct massive drainage networks across the country as well as reviving dams’ embankment or water retention structures.

I strongly call on PMB to help keep his administration’s promises of constructing 400 dams across the country and addressing the life-threatening issue of climate change so as to salve Nigeria’s future generations and the entire world from the quandary.

• Mustapha Baba.

 Azare, Bauchi State.