Nigerians should expect more flood – Commissioner

The Delta State Commissioner for Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Antonia Ashiedu, has warned that the recent flooding that wrecked havoc across the country may likely occour again if no policy is set up by the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS) to address the issue.

Ashiedu who is also a member of the Technical Committee set up set up by the Delta state Governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan to find solution to future flooding, gave this warning in Asaba, at a colloquium on post-flooding era, organised by the Delta Guild of Indigenous Newspaper Publishers, under the leadership of Mr. Femi Odonmeta.

Accoding to her, “There will be another flood, unless we address this very issue quickly. There ought to be a West African policy to address how each country releases water. There is the issue of climate change, I concede to that. That, of course, adds to the volume of water we now have in the dams. So, it was between the devil and the deep blue sea. You leave it in the dams, and the dams collapse, we won’t have any country anymore, not even local governments.

“There should be a structured approach to how each country releases water because technology has gone far and you can now predict how much rain you can have in one year, two years, three years. You can actually do that. That is on regional basis.

Speaking further, the Commissioner added that. “If you recall, the rain was not falling much during the period of the flood. Where did the water come from? It came from the dams. That was why the current was unusual. Was it only Cameroon that released water? Of course not.”

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