Opening Of Lagdo Dam Will Worsen Flooding In Nigeria, NEMA Warns

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has said the release of water from Lagdo Dam will only worsen the flood situation in Nigeria and called for the need to put necessary preparations in place to mitigate impending flooding.

Speaking at the national emergency coordination forum meeting held in Abuja on Wednesday, the director-general of NEMA, Mustapha Ahmed said: “This particular meeting has been necessitated by the notification received from the ministry of Foreign Affairs, of the modulated release of water from Lagdo Dam in Cameroon on the Benue River. The country has commenced release of water from the Dam at the rate of 200 cubic meters per second which is about 18 million cubic meter of water per day. This release may result to all front-line states experiencing flooding in subsequent days and weeks, it is of great importance to also note that the Dam might commence full discharge of excess water from the dam in the event that the region experiences heavy amount of rainfall.

“As we all know, coordination is a vital component of disaster management which needs to be given adequate attention to ensure timely and efficient response. To ensure effective coordination and implementation of various policies therefore, the agency has dimmed it fit to invite critical stakeholders to this forum to deliberate on how to respond and mitigate the impeding flood we are currently being faced with, in Nigeria.’’

“We have already started experiencing flood in some parts of the country this year with the rainfall. The release from the Lagdo Dam will only worsen the flood situation and therefore calls for concerted effort so as to address and mitigate the impact,” he stated.

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He said the forum is therefore an avenue for critical stakeholders to come together to strategize and ensure that the release do not cause much negative impacts on the low-lying communities along the state that would be affected.

Also speaking at the event, the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA), Clement Nze said: “The release of water from the Dam commenced at the rate of 200 cubic metres per second (200m?/s) which is about 18 million cubic metres of water per day (18Mm3/day).

According to the official, this exercise will continue for the next  seven days seeing that the reservoir level currently stands at 213.46m and the maximum permissible level of the reservoir is 214.02m. The said official also added: ‘We will continue to observe the situation. If there Is no major inflow, we will close the spillway in the coming days. The situation is under control’.

“By 25th August 2023, the water releases from the reservoir has reduced to 50m/s. However, by 5.16pm on the 28th August 2023, the Hydrologist in-charge of the Dam notified the director-general of NIHSA that they stopped spilling water by 11.00am that same yesterday.

“The water level at our monitoring station in Makurdi, Benue State was 8.99m as against 9.75m that was recorded on same date in 2022. This indicated a reduction in the observed flow of last week and normal flow in the flow of River Benue system.

The flow level on the River Niger system is considerably stable as well. The level of River Niger at Niamey (Niger Republic), upstream Nigeria, is normal with a flow level of 4.35m. Situation reports from the inland dams (Kainji and Jebba) on River Niger and Shiroro on River Kaduna indicated normal flow regime The present reservoir level at Kainji dam is 134. 64m (maximum reservoir level is 141 83m). This shows that there is room to impound waters into the reservoir from the upstream as the inflow increases on the River Niger system.”

The states on the downstream of River Benue likely to be affected more by the flood are Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Anambra, Enugu, Edo, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa States among others.