The federal government has inaugurated an Inter-ministerial Technical Committee to evaluate the state of dams across the country.
The committee, led by the minister of water resources and sanitation, Prof Joseph Utsev, was inaugurated on Wednesday in Abuja, with key objectives to evaluate the physical condition of dams, assess the social and environmental implications for local communities, and develop a programme to address the challenges associated with dams in the country.
Other members of the committee are the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, Wale Edun; the minister of works, David Umahi; the minister of housing and urban development, Ahmed Dangiwa; the minister of information and national orientation, Mohammed Idris, the minister of environment, Balarabe Lawal; the national security adviser, Nuhu Ribadu; and the minister of budget and economic planning, Abubakar Bagudu; and others.
In his opening remarks at the committee’s inaugural meeting, Prof Utsev recalled the recent tragedy in Maiduguri and its environs, which was reviewed at the Federal Executive Council meeting on 23rd September 2024. In response to the disaster, the council recommended the establishment of a Disaster Relief Fund to address future national disasters while mitigating the impact on affected communities.
To support the objectives of this fund, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu approved the formation of the Inter-ministerial Technical Committee.
The minister further announced plans to co-opt technical experts and establish a Project Delivery Unit (PDU) to support the committee throughout its assignment.
He expressed optimism that the deliberations would lead to actionable strategies to protect the country from future disasters.
The minister of information and national orientation, Mohammed Idris, noted that the country is still grappling with the disaster caused by flooding and that the government was looking at the situation to avert future occurrences.
He said, “It is in light of that that the president, with his wisdom, set up this committee, an inter-ministerial committee, to evaluate the situation of dams in Nigeria and come up with a solution that would help in averting the kind of situation we saw in Borno State and around the country.
“All of us are coming together to look at this issue holistically and see how the re-occurrence of this unfortunate and tragic situation can be averted.
“Everything that we do here will now be transmitted to Nigeria holistically, and the technical committee under this main committee is also coming on to go to the field to do a real evaluation of the situation to cope up to this, which will, in turn, produce a comprehensive report to the government so that government will address this issue completely.”
Idris said the report will be ready in a few weeks, emphasising that the rainy season has advanced. “We know that for anything to be meaningful, we have to take a very proactive and quick decision so that the next rainy season will not catch us napping,” he said.
