Flood: NiMet wants govt. enforcement complacence

By Chukwuemeke Iwelunmo

As flood continues to ravage communities across the country, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has called for the need by the government to do more on the enforcement compliance of urban and city plans

Speaking at a national television program, the Director General NiMet, Prof Mansur Bako Matazu urged Nigerians especially state governments to align with activities and factor-based to the prevailing weather conditions and relevant forecasts

Matazu also stressed the need for government to align properly with the relevant agencies to get the primary baseline information before embarking on any estate development or city plans

He called for community-based based enforcement whereby the community will be involved to enforce compliance by the people

“The missing link is enforcement and we need to do more and the people need to take forecast advisory seriously. Government at state levels should key in and integrate their planning and development activities using the NiMet information”.

“It’s very vital and we have been making this noise to make sure that what we are doing at the Federal level is being replicated at the state levels. That is what we call scaling down”.

Matazu lamented that the response from the state governments have not been too encouraging and there was a need to do more. He urged the people in the south to prepare as there will be a second peak of more rains in the next seven Weeks

He called for effective communication; all stakeholders should come on board while the media should use information dissemination on the ravaging flood situation as their corporate social responsibility to inform the public.