The Director General, Nigeria Meteorological Agency,Prof. Mansur Matazu has warned Nigerians to expect more floods in the coming weeks.
Prof. Matazu gave the warning at the opening ceremony of a three day workshop on hydro-meteorological status and out look system (HYDROSOS) organized by UK Center for Ecology and hydrology in conjunction with NiMet and NIHSA.
According to the DG, we are in an era of extreme events which explains the severe flooding in some parts of Nigeria. He said it was a ten year interval of extreme weather,citing similar events in 2002 and 2012 adding that though we had seen the peak of the rainfall, the dams were filled and had been released causing Riverine flooding.
Prof. Matazu said flooding should be expected in the North central,South eastern and South Western states.
Commenting on the significance of HYDROSOS, he said Nigeria is the first African country to be picked haven met best practices adding that the program will give rise to more precision and more stakeholders on board.
The representative of the World Meteorological Agency, said HYDROSOS would bring NiMet and NIHSA to work together to provide information that is more actionable and urged all relevant stakeholders and individuals to listen to messages from NiMet and NIHSA daily while planning in line. He further said a major fall out of the program would be capacity development.
On his part, the DG NIHSA said this year has been tremendous with the amount of rainfall normally experienced over a period of time, experienced over a number of days.
He said the flooding is due to excessive local rainfall, adding that the water is not receding yet.
The Minister of aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika in his address,described the workshop as timely as it intends to address and proffer solutions to global challenges associated with hydrological hazards and risks as it relates to Africa, particularly Nigeria.
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