THE Deputy Director, Irrigation of the Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority, Mrs Muslimat Yusuf  has called on the Federal Government to improve on its flood warning systems to avert a repeat of 2012 flood disaster in the country.

Mrs Yusuf made the call in Ilorin, Kwara State, in her lecture at the opening of 2013 week of the Association of Professional Women Engineers (APWEN) entitled: “The role of engineering and technology in national development: Combating the Challenges of Flood and water/ river systems”.

According to her, there was the need for government to improve on warning systems that were accurate, timely and more reliable in order to reduce social losses from flood.

She added that dissemination of information on impending floods in 2013 and enlightenment programmes on its risk and the effects should be more timely and regular through the mass media.

Mrs Yusuf, represented by Mrs Toyin Babatunde, urged government at all levels to delineate flood-prone areas, saying that “to ensure proper delineation of the flood-prone areas, there is need to ensure a detailed engineering studies, historic data, topographic maps and detailed soil maps of the area.

“Government should provide all necessary manpower training and various emergency management agencies for efficiency in the discharge of their duties.”

He advocated for construction of dam reservoirs for storage of flood water and improvement on the river channel to enlarge their discharge capacity.
Yusuf, who claimed that more than 7.7 million people were affected by 2012 flood in Nigeria, urged the public to learn and applied their lessons and knowledge from the past flood.

Also in his lecture, the Special Adviser to Kogi State governor on Natural Disaster, Air Vice Marshal Gabriel-Abdul (retd), said government should always prepare for disaster, claiming that 2012 flood disaster caught every stakeholder unaware as no government prepare for it despite the warning.

He charged government to involve local engineers in decision making, claiming that the perennial problems of the country would be a thing of the past if more indigenous experts were involved in engineering and technological demand.

Gabriel-Abdul also wanted the Federal Government to allocate more fund for disaster management in the yearly budget.

In her address, Dr  Tinuke Odetoye said the APWEN activities were informed by the need to address the challenge and profer solution to the problem to prevent the recurrence of such natural disaster.