Ondo State Government has called on its residents to be actively involved in the sanitation of the environment to mitigate the effects of flooding in the state.
Deputy Governor of the state, Dr Olayide Adelami, made the call on Wednesday in Akure at the flag off of the 2025 Flood National Preparedness and Response Campaign, NPRC, organised by National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA.
DAILY POST reports that the programme, in conjunction with Ondo State Emergency Management Agency, ODSEMA, is themed, “Strengthening Resilience, Enhancing Preparedness and Response”;.
The Deputy Governor, who was represented by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Dr Kola Falohun, said the poor sanitation of the environment had led to blocked drainages, which in turn, encourages flooding.
“We have killed the spirit of sanitation. We rarely see people doing environmental sanitation. If we don’t sanitise the environment, then the drainages get choked up.
“When you have a lot of other challenges, not only water, It could be as a result of the way the environment is contaminated by man.
“Let us mitigate rather than arrest the situation when it starts. Key into what the government is doing. The communities should be involved,”; he said.
Speaking earlier, Director-General, NEMA, Mrs Zubaida Umar, said the agency had earlier organised a two-day technical meeting to analyse the disaster risk management of Seasonal Climate Prediction, SCP, and Annual Flood Outlook, AFO.
According to her, one of the recommendations of that meeting is to intensify the physical down scaling of the early warning alerts and to enhance preparedness and response strategy in all the states of Nigeria.
“That is the essence why this team from NEMA Abuja is here today. I appreciate Nigeria Meteorological Services (NiMet), through their SCP, and the Nigeria Hydrological Service Agency (NIHSA) on their AFO for each climatic year.
“With the use of a weather satellite surveillance and flood risk modeling software, they have been able to forecast at 90 per cent accuracy of rainfall patterns in the country for all Local Government Areas. They have also determined areas that are of high risk probability of being flooded,”; she said.
