Minister of Minister of Water Resources Sulieman Adamu has revealed that as the volume of rains increase, some parts of the country would be highly affected.
The Minister made the revelation on Wednesday while briefing journalists after the Federal Executive Meeting in Abuja.
According to Adamu, Niamey the capital of Niger Republic has put the country on alert.
He noted that the levels of the River in Niamey has increased considerably and the country is at alert at the moment.
“That is an indication that there will be more flood into the river Niger downstream towards Kanji, Jabba and of course by the time you come down on confluence at Lokoja the situation will be compounding because you are already aware of the flood situation in Benue.
“The good thing is that we have an observatory in Niamey and another one in Lokoja to give us that real time, per second updates on the water level.
“So we are monitoring the situation and I briefed Council on our efforts to monitor the situation which we are doing. Our consultation with NEMA, which is working closely with Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency which is an agency under the Ministry of Water Resources.
“And if there is any indication that there is going to be a significant rise or is going to get to an emergency situation, we will be able to give an early warning to NEMA which is poised to inform affected states along River Niger particularly Kogi, Anambra, Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers.
“For now there is no cause for alarm but like I said we are monitoring the situation and it could very well become more drastic with more rains.
“I believe the most important thing is that we cannot stop the flooding but we can provide early warning and we ensure that we take safety measures to reduce lost of property and lost of life.
“We give a flood outlook and the areas that are vulnerable, we have done that. When the flood at Mandala happened I held a press conference and I informed the states what was going on, the flood outlook and the warnings that we gave and admonished them on what to do.”
Also briefing, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma said the FEC had extensive discussion on the state of economy.
He said the council was encouraged on the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, growth rate which indicated that it was going in the right direction, adding that the policies of the government have succeeded in stopping economic the slide.
He assured that the 2018 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF and the next year’s budget proposal will be submitted to the National Assembly by October this year.
