By Chinelo Obogo
Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has advised Nigerians in states inluding Taraba and some parts of the South West areas to prepare for impending flooding.
Director General of NiMet, Prof. Mansur Matazu, who spoke said Nigerians should prepare for flooding in some parts of the country adding that the climate change has affected the activities across the world.
He said NiMet recorded 95 percent precision and accuracy in the last 15 years adding, that according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 60 percent was good.
He expressed displeasure that most states and local governments are not connected to the national level in adherence to early warnings by not aligning to their activities.
He also stressed the need for MDAs to take all the advice from NiMet to mitigate the impact of flooding and called for adequate compliance.
Matazu, however, expressed optimism that with the agency’s good working relationship with the National Orientation Agency and Ministry of Communication, a lot of sensitisation would be done to ensure that people take climate forecast into their daily activities
On adherence to forecast by farmers, Matazu explained that the agency has distributed farmers rain gauge to them for monitoring to enable them to feedback the agency. Matazu, urged Nigerians to desist from pouring refuse into the water channels and to stop building on water ways to mitigate flooding.