The Federal Government says it will take 30 years of consistent investment to control the menace of flooding which has claimed over 600 lives and displaced 1.4 million people across the country.
The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, said this yesterday while briefing State House reporters after the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
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The minister, who noted that nobody could stop flood, said the government could only minimize its impact.
Adamu said despite the early warning system in place, a lot of capital-intensive initiatives remained to be done in future to avert the consequences of flood disasters.
He said the solutions could not be achieved under one administration alone, adding that the present administration was already working on a flood management masterplan that would take at least three years to complete.
He said flood victims ignored warnings to evacuate.
He said the massive impact of this year’s floods in the country was compounded by tree felling and degraded soil.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouk, said it was incorrect to say the government was unprepared as warehouses were repositioned and grains deployed to states expected to experience flood.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, urged Nigerians to keep an open mind on the way the government had handled the flood disaster.
The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, noted that states and local governments, not federal government, are responsible for providing temporary shelters for citizens in vulnerable flood plains who had nowhere to go.
He said his ministry had identified 154 places where transport infrastructure worth N80bn was impaired or damaged by the recent floods in parts of the country.
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