Humanitarian Minister Lauds FCT Minister over massive demolition on flood plains

Sadiya Umar Farouq, Minister, Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development

By: Wisdom Acka

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development,
Sadiya Umar Farouq has the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Mallam Muhammad Musa Bello, for his precautionary measure taken to mitigate the effect of flooding in Abuja.

Speaking over the weekend at a briefing on the effect of flooding in some of the States of the federation, she said it takes collective efforts to mitigate this menace.

According to her: “For example, what my colleague, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory is doing is commendable. Last year, we had unprecedented flooding in Abuja within the FCT, but this year it is not there, because of the measures he took to demolish all structures that were built on water channels. Today FCT is said to be flood free compare to what happened last year.”

“Warnings were issued, we reached out to respective governments, even citizens have roles to play. Instances where people want to build on flood plains, most of the flood was not due to the release of the Cameron Dam that we are talking about that has not been decided yet, we are experiencing this kind of flood because of structures built on water ways,” she emphasized.

Farouq stressed that people should take responsibility, and governments and other critical stakeholders should also collectively take responsibility, flooding will be reduced to the barest minimum.

When contacted, the Senior Special Assistance on Monitoring Inspection and Evaluation to the FCT Minister, Comrade Ikharo Attah hinted that, the Humanitarian Minister has stated the obvious, ” if you look at this year, the FCT Minister was extremely proactive in mitigating flood and flood disasters in Abuja”.

His words:”From the onset, if you observed, we have negative indicator that we are going to have massive flooding this year. From that point, the Minister ensure that every related Department and Agencies are put on their toes.”

“The Minister set up a high powered committee headed by the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Olusade Adesola and the Executive Secretary of Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), Engr. Ahmed Hadi.

“Other relevant departments and agencies such as AMMC, FEMA, Development Control, my office and Abuja Environmental Protection Board(AEPB) that we should go all out to ensure that the issue of flooding is not recorded in the city anywhere,” he added.

“The Minister said there shouldn’t be any illegal structures obstrusting the water ways, the Minister gave a matching order that such structures should be removed,” the SSA reiterated.

“Some Flood prone areas heavily hit by demolition includes, Trademore estate and others along Airport Road, Gwarimpa Housing Estate and Dutse Makaranta community among others were demolished and today, we did not have any record of such,” he said.

The SSA recalled, “Whenever it rained in the city , every member of the committee are put on their toes to monitor any possible likely areas of flooding”.