The Director-General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, Prof. Mansur Matazu, has revealed that the flooding witnessed in the country last year led to $4.6 billion damage to the economy.
Matazu made this disclosure during a one-day high-level advocacy workshop on ramping up access to climate information services for national development and food security in Nigeria organized by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda on Wednesday in Abuja.
The figure, according to Matazu, was derived from the World Bank Survey commissioned by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs. He explained that the report was based on a rapid assessment of the cost implications of the 2022 flood damage in terms of livelihoods, farmlands, and infrastructure.
“This flood has cost the country over $4.6 billion, and that is a significant weight on our GDP,” Matazu lamented.
“Notwithstanding, we are recovering very fast, and the government has already commissioned a presidential committee to come up with lasting solutions to flooding and see how we can better utilize the floodwaters, which mostly come from within the country, to improve our agriculture.”
Matazu further stated that NiMet was working assiduously to align with the present government’s policy of achieving food security, sustainability, and availability for all Nigerians.
Describing climate change as a serious challenge in the country, he pointed out that there is local evidence of climate change in Nigeria.
He added that the agency would leverage partnerships to work with relevant stakeholders to develop localized adaptation and mitigation measures that Nigerians could adopt to provide climate-smart agricultural advisories and services through the agricultural extension agents system, thereby increasing yields and enhancing food security and stability in the country.
Sulaimon Arigbabu, Executive Secretary of HEDA, attributed the losses suffered by farmers due to flooding to a lack of access to climate information services.
Arigbabu asserted that Nigeria’s food crisis and insecurity were driven by resource constraints triggered by climate change.
“You will recall that there was a major flooding in Nigeria last year,” Arigbabu recalled.
“What many did not know is that something close to that happened this year, maybe not as negatively as that of last year, but because the impact of last year’s flooding still lingers in communities, so this is an additional stress for us, especially for our food-producing community.”
Arigbabu continued, “We went around many communities and realized that farmers continue to suffer even post-flooding. This is because the kind of support they need to be able to lift themselves out of poverty, to be able to lift this country out of food insecurity and potential crisis, may not be reaching them.”
Arigbabu stressed that lack of access to climate information services was a major issue bedevilling agricultural production in Nigeria, often not receiving the required attention.
“We know, of course, that our partner on this project, NiMet, produces seasonal climate predictions,” Arigbabu explained.
“They also have regular forecasts, but this is not getting to the farmers. It needs to get to the farmers in three important ways. One, it needs to get to the agric policy authorities at all states ahead of the planting season, so that planning for each year’s production needs to be made in that regard.”
Arigbabu further explained that information also needed to reach farmers when they were about to start preparing for planting.
He noted that due to changing rainfall patterns, many farmers often went to production prematurely, leading to losses. Sometimes, they did not receive information about what to plant and what not to plant.
“We were in Adamawa last year, and many maize farmers were crying that they wished they had had the information; they would have planted sugarcane instead. And that would not have been destroyed by the flooding they encountered,” Arigbabu recounted.
