Despite the heavy floods that has claimed several lives in flood affected states across the country, the FCT Administration said the territory has no death record due to the strategies it has put in place.
Director General, FCT Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, Alhaji Abbas Idriss, said the ongoing demolition of illegal structures and involvement of Local Emergency Management Committee and volunteers at the local levels are part of the strategies, which ensured that there is no death this year, as a result of flooding in FCT.
Idriss said the leadership of the FCT provided strong political will that helped clear obstructions on water flowing to its discharge point, caused by the activities of some residents.
Idriss, who spoke at an event organised by National Emergency Management Agency, to mark the 2022 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, IDDRR, in Abuja, added that its local divers, disaster vanguards and other volunteers are working round the clock to ensure that any flooding incidence was not devastating.
He said, “Disaster risk reduction and management is a bottom up strategy. We have to make sure that we inculcate the habit into our locals, to ensure that being the first respondents and most vulnerable when it (disaster) happens.
“Liaising with Nimet, and as soon as we get the early warning, which is prompted to do the early action, we promptly inform those Local Emergency Management Committee and volunteers at the local levels to be at alert, by getting prepared and putting all strategies in place, to ensure that it is not devastating.
“It is one of those strategies that this year in the FCT, we have not witnessed any death as a result of flooding in FCT.
“On daily, there are a lot of demolitions going on in the FCT. This is also strategic, because we discovered that having planned Abuja very well, there is no point to say that we are having obstructions on water flowing to its discharge point, because of the activities of some residents.”
Only recently he said the administration removed over 250 houses at Lokogoma District, with several others at Life Camp and so many other places, as part of its continuous clean-up exercise aimed at combating the negativities of climate change.
“Early warning and early action is something that we are supposed be doing. IDDRR has really come to educate and enlighten the world on the aims and objectives of disaster risk reduction, which is very critical. It also shows that we need to be very proactive, apt and doing.”
