Peter Obi, the presidential standard bearer of the Labour Party, has disclosed his plan to fix flooding crisis ravaging the country if elected president in 2023.
Speaking on Arise TV on Monday, Obi noted that the flooding crisis was birthed by different occurrences.
He suggested that the flood could be avoided by predicting the calculation of rainfall and dredging major rivers in Nigeria.
He said:
“What will I do to curb this flooding? There’s a combination of things that I need to do. There is the issue of Lagdo dam but even the minister said the rainfall caused the flooding and not the dam. But if you take the average rainfall in the past 20 years — since 2001 — it remains the same, which means it is predictable.
“But the issue is that we have refused to dredge some rivers. We need to dredge the River Benue and Niger from Baro, Niger State down to the Atlantic Ocean. But there’s currently no ability to hold this drainage, and tributaries are also part of what is causing this problem. The rivers are no longer contributing to our economic growth as they should be.
“These are the things we should do to be able to contain this.”
Obi had announced the suspension of his political campaign to visit some states affected by flooding.
He also commiserated with residents of the affected states over the impact of flooding on their communities.
Records from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) disclosed that 34 out of the 36 states have been affected and 1.3 million people displaced.
It was gathered that over 600 people have lost their lives, while more than 200,000 houses were either partially or fully damaged.
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