Written by Theophilus Abbah, Sanusi Babagoro, Shehu Abubakar,
Abdulwasiu Hassan and Aliyu M. Hamagam, Minna & Tony Adibe
. Worse floods loom as Kainji dam’s water channels have not been cleared in five years
. Flood victims now drink from untreated water
A disaster that is worse than what has been witnessed in North-Central
states could occur if, as the Nigerian Metorological Agency (NIMET)
predicted, torrential rains persist. The reason may not necessary be an
act of God, but the byproduct of the neglect of the Kainji Dam in Niger
State for upward of five years, Sunday Trust can reveal.
Already, more than 200 persons have been
killed and property worth billions of naira have been destroyed in
massive floods in Kogi, Benue, Nasarawa, Niger, Kaduna, the Federal
Capital Territory (FCT), down to several South-South states, where the
River Niger flows.
A reliable source at Kainji Dam told
Sunday Trust at the weekend that the dam is facing a protracted problem,
which is capable of causing more harm than has been witnessed in the
last few weeks. The reason is that in the last five years, the natural
water drainage channels have been neglected.
Our source, who is a top official at the
dam, told our reporter that, “Kainji dam is originally designed to
generate power. However, it has some natural drainages that have been
blocked and require routine river treatment, to enable it discharge
water from the dam as at when due. Without this, excess water would
accumulate and overflow its channels, thereby destroying communities and
farmlands around it. For over five years now, the natural channels have
been blocked. We have always reported the blockage to the Ministry of
Power because Kainji is under the power ministry, but no action has been
taken.”
The official said further, “As I am
talking to you now, not even one naira has been earmarked for the river
treatment of Kainji dam in the 2012 budget and I am not sure government
has made any provision for the river treatment of this dam in the 2013
budget. Government is only interested in the ability of the dam to
generate electricity. It is not interested in maintaining it.”
He added that, “There are two
incontrovertible facts about Kainji dam. One, the natural channels are
blocked and that is affecting its ability to discharge excess water,
thereby threatening the safety and security of the dam. The earlier we
commence river treatment for the dam the better. River treatment is very
expensive, as much as it is unavoidable. Two, the excess water
discharged from this dam account for over 80 percent of the flood being
experienced today at the lower River Niger. The blockage of the natural
channel is making the situation critical. There is nothing we can do to
control the situation. In fact, should the dam receive any additional
water within this rainy season, worse disaster will be recorded. The
pressure on the dam is at its peak now. Anything could happen.”
When asked if the dam management had
sought for expert advice in addition to the reports made to the Ministry
of Power, the source said, “We contacted the Ministry of Water
Resources, which has all the experts, and a team came here, saw what we
were saying and went back to report to government, but nothing has been
done so far. The National Assembly committees that could have listened
to us and initiate action are not willing to come here because we have
nothing to give them. The only remedy for now is, all the riverside
communities should be immediately evacuated. With just two more heavy
rainfalls or should another dam discharge its water into Kainji dam,
what is happening now will be a child’s play,” the source said.
However, in an interview, the Deputy
Director in charge of Dams and Reservoir operations in the Federal
Ministry of Water Resources, Kabir Moyi, said Kainji dam is structurally
in good shape.
The director, who gave the dam a clean
bill of health, said he led a team of engineers to the dam at the
instance of the federal Ministry of Power that owns the dam.
He added, however, that for Nigeria to
avert flood in the future, there is need to open up the blocked natural
water channels across the country so that water will stop moving in to
farms and houses.
He also said there is need for the
construction of more dams for the country, to be able to contain the
torrential volume of water that climate change may continue, to generate
in order to avert future occurrence of the flood.
Checks in the recent federal budgets
proved that government has not spent any money on clearing the natural
water channels in Kainji dam since 2008. In the 2008 budget of the
Ministry of Power, there was a budget of N340 million for Kainji
Auxillary Rehabilitation by Alsthon. This contract is related to power.
Other allocations to Kainji Dam were for the extension of Kanji 330 KVA
Subs-Station and 132KV DC to New Busa at the rate of N720 million. No
other item referred to the rehabilitation of the natural water channel.
Also, in 2009, the only item about
Kainji Dam was the “completion of the rehabilitation and repairs of
power plants,” which was supposed to cost government N850 million. In
the 2012 budget, the neglect continued as of the two items related to
Kainji Dam were a World Bank rehabilitation of units of IG5, G6 and IG12
Station counterpart funding to the tune of N350 million. The second was
tagged as “plant auxillary spares and annual maintenance,” for which
N402,983,150 was set aside. It is not clear whether these funds were
released.
A former military governor of Kano and
Benue States, Colonel Aminu Isa Kontagora (rtd), associated the floods
in North-Central States with the neglect of Kainji dam. According to
him, “Annual floods devastating farmlands with progressive aggression
occurs in at least five local government areas of Niger State. They are
so common place that people are now used to their yearly losses. Unless
steps are taken to conduct routine maintenance of Kainji Dam, it is
uncertain when the perennial flooding would end.
However, Engineer Reuben Akinwumi, the
Chief Executive Officer of Kainji Power Station, told Sunday Trust that
the flooding cannot be blamed on whether or not the water channels were
cleared, asking rhetorically, “Would you blame the overflooding in the
Upper River Niger from Cameroon on Kainji channels, too? You can come
and see things for yourself. You can also seek further clarifications
from the Ministry of Water Resources.”
Effects of floods in Niger State
About 50 persons were reported to have
lost their lives in 493 coastal communities located along River Niger
and Kaduna that were sacked by floods that wreaked havoc on them as a
result of high volume of water released from Kaiji, Jebba and Shiroro
hydro dams in Niger state.
Speaking to Sunday Trust, the
Director-General of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA),
Mohammed Shaba, who spoke through his Director of Relief and
Rehabilitation, Garba Salihu, said statistics of provisional assessment
put the amount of losses incurred in the floods at N 2.5 billion.
He said that the affected communities
cut across 15 out of the 25 Local Government Areas of the state, adding
that provisional assessment also indicated that a landmass of 2. 7
million hectares was also washed away by the flood. Out of the sacked
communities, it was reported that 41,125 people were displaced and now
taking shelter in 18 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps spread in
eight LGAs, including five camps each, in Mokwa and Lapai, two each in
Lavun and Bargu, while Wushishi, Edati, Shiroro and Munya each, has one
IDP camp.
However, the DG said two IDP camps had
been shut following the receding of water volume in Shiroro and Munya
LGAs. He added that when the three hydro dams a warning alert of an
imminent danger of flood along the coastal areas in the state, SEMA
went round all the communities considered under serious threat for
sensitization with a call on them to relocate to safer areas.
The DG emphasized that his agency
embarked on the sensitization with the call for relocation because the
flooding disaster along the coastal areas of the state had became a
yearly affair, hence the decision of the government to resettle them
with a view to having a permanent solution to the problem. But the good
news, according to him, is that about 80 communities along the river
banks of river Kaduna and Niger have agreed to be relocated to plain
lands that are free from flood threat.
Giving the breakdown of statistics of
the damages incurred as a result of the flood in the state, the SEMA
boss said, Mokwa recorded the highest death toll with 29 lives lost.
Borgu and Bosso recorded the death of four persons each, Chanchaga and
Wushishi recorded three deaths each while Lavun and Lapai had two cases
of death each and one case from Kontogora LGA.
He added that in respective order,
Borgu, Lavun, Mokwa 52, 34, 25 communities were affected. In Bosso,
Munya and Shiroro LGAs 10 communities in each were equally affected.
Wushishi recorded 13 cases, Chanchaga seven, Edati four, five each in
Kontagora and two communities each in Katcha and Agaie.
Niger State started experiencing its own
share of the devastating effect of the flood on September, 4th and
the situation went out of hand when on the 8th of the same month Kainji
and Jebba hydro dams started releasing water and two weeks later the
situation further deteriorated when Shiroro hydro dam also followed
suit.
Kogi flood and victims’ tales of agony
Kogi flood victims who are camped in
Enugu State are lamenting. They are at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church,
Igga in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State. At the time of
filing thus report, the premise are accommodating 119 families, 517
females and 497 males. They were among the thousands of victims of the
ravaging and killing flood that submerged some Ibaji communities of Kogi
State. Now, they are being camped as refugees in Uzo-Uwani local
government area of Enugu State. And they have all made passionate appeal
to the Federal Government and Governor Idris Wada of Kogi State to
urgently come to their assistance.
Their living condition is sad to write
home about. They are squatting in primary school buildings at Iggah and
Ogrugu, two boundary communities in Enugu State. Specifically, they are
camped at Iggah, Ojjor and Ogrugu. The people are in pitiable condition.
Worse still, the refugees now drink from the flooded Mabolo River, said
to be very dangerous for human consumption because of its toxic nature.
However, four persons - a man, his wife
and two children reportedly drowned when their canoe capsized as they
paddled on their way to the refugee camp in Iggah after their home in
Odeke community of Kogi state was overtaken by the massive flood.
Sunday Trust learned that the victims were paddling in a canoe when the
goats they were taking along in the canoe began to disturb their
movement on the flood. In an attempt to calm the goat down, the canoe
capsized while all the occupants got drowned.
Many of the refugees who spoke to our
reporter bemoaned the hunger and sufferings which they have had to
battle since they fled their Kogi communities to Uzo-Uwani in Enugu
state. Mr. Paul Agwuja, from Odeke in Ibaji community of Kogi State,
said he was totally wrecked by their misfortune occasioned by the flood.
“I am really confused; so confused that I don’t know what to say. But
whichever way you can help us, please do. It is something that happened
to us accidentally, and we never expected it,” he said.
Another victim, a polygamist, who said
he had 10 children, told our reporter that, “I came here five days ago
now. The problem is that the flood, which we have never experienced
since we were born, came to our place suddenly. It covered all our land
and houses. The force of the flood pulled down our houses, and we could
not even recover any of our household effects.”
Mrs. Caroline Onoh, also from Odeke
community, is a mother of four children. She told our reporter, “We are
suffering too much since the flood ravaged our homeland, and turned the
entire people of the community into refugees. Since we came here about
six days, the natives of Iggah have been giving us shelter, food and
water. But we don’t have anything left for us. The flood took all we
have laboured for throughout our lives.” She said she came to the camp
with only one of her children, while the rest are camped in other
places. She said, “I want government to provide for us food, clothes,
money.”
Interestingly, the Chairman of Uzo-Uwani
Local Government Area of Enugu State, Chief Cornel Onwubuya had donated
relief materials worth about N5million to the flood victims who fled
their state and are currently camping in communities within Enugu state.
The materials donated to the refugees at the three camps on Wednesday
included 100 bags of rice, 4 beans, drugs, 500 treated nets, 100 cartons
of toilet rolls, 20 gallons of 25 kg groundnut oil, 75 flash-lights
with batteries, cartons of disinfectants, sacs of onions, cartons of
maggi cubes, 30 bags of salt, cartons of bathing and washing soaps, mats
and blankets, trailer load of satchet water, bottled water, among other
essential items.
When contacted on why the National
Assembly has not insisted on a better funding of Kainji Dam, the
chairman of the House Committee on Media and Publicity Rep. Zakari
Mohammed (PDP, Kwara), said he was not in Abuja at the moment and as
such he can’t confirm or deny the issue.
“When I come back I will interact with
the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, John Enoh, to ascertain
the true position of things as far the issue of funding of the Kainji
Dam and other dams across the country is concerned. The flooding is
affecting everybody, including those in my constituency,” the House
spokesman said.
DailyTrust
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