• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Nigeria records the highest number of people affected by flood

Nigeria records the highest number of people affected by flood

Nigeria currently has the largest number of people hit by flooding among 19 African countries.

At least a total of 3.5 million people out of five million people in Africa who have been affected by the flood are Nigerians, according to data gotten from UN OCHA, World Food Programme, and Telimer Research.

This flooding has been majorly attributed to the release of water from the Cameroonian Lagdo dam, which affected Nigeria because of its lack of flood defense mechanism, such as the Dasin Hausa Dam which should have been built 40 years ago and would have been able to cushion the effect of whatever came from Lagdo.

Read also: Businesses under water as flood rages

The 2022 floods are more intense than 2012’s, just that fewer States are involved this year. States most hit by the flood include Anambra, Delta, Cross River, Rivers state, Bayelsa and Benue, which is far less than the 32 states that the Nigerian Meteorological Agency had warned would experience high risk of flooding this year.

While talking about the damage that the flood caused, Umar Farouq, minister of humanitarian affairs, said: “over 500 lives have been lost, about 90,000 houses partially or totally damaged, more than 140,000 hectares of farmland damaged, while roads and other critical infrastructure have not been saved from this damage’’.