FCT tremor: Invest more in early warning systems, expert urges FG

Dr Joseph Dodo, a space geodesy expert, has stressed the need for Federal Government to invest more in early warning mechanisms to avoid earth tremor and possible earthquake in the country.

Dodo, who is also the Director, Centre for Geodesy and Geodynamics, National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), said this on Thursday, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

The scientist said that Mpape community, a suburb of Abuja where series of earth tremors occurred on Sept. 16 was located on a fault line.

He explained that the incident was triggered by the mining activities, urging that such activities must stop completely in the area.

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According to him, the important intervention is for the government to invest in early warning mechanisms and ensure that earthquake does not occur unexpectedly.

“We have had a lot of arguments in different fora where people say Nigeria is stable and cannot experience earthquake and nothing of such nature.

“We have to know that the earth is dynamic, we believe that every part on the earth surface moves, though we cannot see it with naked eyes but every point on the earth surface moves.

“There are changes that take places between the earth surface and beneath the earth surface, and some of these things are natural phenomenon which no one can prevent from happening.

“On our part, we can put up early warning systems, but these early warning system does not mean that it will stop this phenomenon from happening,’’ he said.

He recalled that when similar event occurred at the same Mpape area in 2018, the Federal Government released some funds to set up integrated monitoring stations sited at Mpape, Maitama and NASRDA respectively.

He said that other stations were in Kaduna, Minna, Niger State, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, Ile-Ife, Osun and Abakaliki, Ebonyi State for data collection.

Dodo added that with the reoccurrence of earth tremor, his centre was putting measures in place to scale-up the monitoring stations to the level of having the capacity to give early warning signs.