Pictures of the water level marker on River Benue which were shared with journalists on Tuesday showed that there was no danger of flooding yet.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has said that the water level of River Benue is still below the emergency level.
Pictures of the water level marker on River Benue which were shared with journalists on Tuesday showed that there was no danger of flooding yet.
“The close shot shows the level is still under emergency level,” Ibrahim Farinloye, NEMA Lagos territorial coordinator, said on Tuesday.
A close shot of the water level marker that was captured by a GPS map camera at 7.37 a.m. on River Benue at Lokoja, Kogi State A233 latitude 7.785378 longitude 6.730523 on Tuesday, August 29, 2023, showed that that water was on the part coloured green but advancing towards the yellow-coloured part.
“Once it moves up from the part painted yellow, it has moved to the emergency level. When the water moves to the part painted red, it has moved to the emergency level. It is like the way traffic lights. Yellow or amber is not a danger yet but it is a warning. It is like saying ‘Get ready.’
“You know it is raining in those parts; Lagos is the only place where they have not been getting normal rainfall. Even Lagos should expect more rainfall from next weekend and they have not released water from Oyo River. River Ogun is full and the communities downstream of River Ogun.
“But they don’t close dams totally. Just like the Osun River basin, they have been releasing it since January so that they won’t have an emergency situation that will affect the community,” Farinloye added.
SaharaReporters on Sunday reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for East and Central African Division had alerted NEMA to an impending flooding along the River Benue basin.
The ministry noted that it had received a notice from the High Commission of the Republic of Cameroon informing that the country's officials would open the flood gates of the Lagdo Dam on the Benue River in the days ahead.
The letter titled 'Cameroonian Officials To Open The Flood Gates Of The Lagdo Dam On The Benue River In Cameroon,' from the Nigerian foreign affairs ministry and addressed to the Director General of the NEMA was dated August 21, 2023, and received by NEMA on August 25, 2023.
It said the dam would be opened due to the heavy rainfall around the dam catchment area in Northern Cameroon.
However, NEMA on Sunday allayed the fears of Nigerians over the planned release of the excess water from Lagdo Dam, which is located on River Benue in the Republic of Cameroon.
In a statement issued by the Head of Press Unit at NEMA in Abuja, Manzo Ezekiel, the agency said it was "working with critical stakeholders at the Federal, States and Local Governments to ensure that the release will not cause much negative impacts on the low-lying communities along the states that would be affected".
It listed the states downstream of River Benue as "Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Anambra, Enugu, Edo, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa States".
"The Agency envisaged this release of excess water from the Lagdo dam, taken note of the likely impacts and considered in the preparations for mitigation and response to the 2023 flood alert," it added.
However, SaharaReporters on Monday reported that observations made by the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) had shown an increase in the volume of water flow along the River Benue downstream.
It was noted that the flow level at NIHSA's gauging station in Makurdi, Benue State was at 8.97 meters as of August 25, 2023, compared to 8.80 meters on the same date in 2022.
The death toll from heavy flooding in Nigeria surpassed 600 in October 2022, with more than 1 million people displaced from their homes. The flooding covered farms and roads and slowed shipments of food and fuel.