- Cameroon’s Lagdo Dam opened 7 days after notification to Nigeria
- NEMA assures Nigerians no negative consequences from dam opening
Clement Nze, Director-General of the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, said yesterday that the notification on the release of water from Cameroon’s Lagdo Dam came about seven days after the dam was opened.
He said this while appearing on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
The Cameroonian High Commission informed the National Emergency Management Agency that officials had resolved to open the floodgates of the Lagdo Dam in the coming days due to heavy rainfall in the dam’s catchment area in Northern Cameroon.
The most vulnerable states, according to NEMA, are Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Anambra, Enugu, Edo, Delta, Rivers, and Bayelsa.
According to Nze, he received the notification “on Saturday night, that is, (the letter was) dated 21st, about seven days or so after the dam had been opened.”
On August 22, being Tuesday, the permanent secretary in the Water Resources Ministry sent it to me to verify immediately. I had to put a call through to the hydrologist on the dam in Cameroon and it was not until Wednesday morning that we got talking.
So, he sent me all the details that they opened the dam 10 minutes past 10 am on the 14th of August and they had been spilling water at the rate of about 20 million cubic metres per day; about 200 metres per second, he said.
When asked if the information was “late news,” Nze replied, “That may be so.”
Tasiu Gidari-Wudil, president of the Nigeria Society of Engineers, urged the government yesterday at a press conference in Abuja to build flood control dams along the Rivers Niger and Benue to prevent flooding caused by the opening of the Lagdo Dam.
He also advocated for major river dredging to reduce siltation and sedimentation.
He claimed that the recommendations of the committees formed by the government following the flood disasters of 2012 and 2022 to conduct research and develop comprehensive action plans to prevent recurrence had not been implemented.
Meanwhile, in a statement issued yesterday by its spokesman, Manzo Ezekiel, NEMA urged Nigerians not to be concerned about the opening of the Lagdo Dam. He stated that NEMA was collaborating with key stakeholders at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure that the release had no negative consequences.
He said:
Information available from the flow level of River Benue at Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) gauging station in Makurdi stood at 8.97 meters as of Aug. 25, compared to 8.80 meters on the same date in 2022.
In contrast, NIHSA has also provided that the flow level of the River Niger system, specifically at Niamey, Niger Republic, remains stable at a normal level of 4.30 meters.
Similarly, inland dams including Kainji, Jebba, and Shiroro reported consistent flow regimes.
With regards to the hydrological station downstream, the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers in Lokoja, Kogi are currently within normal limits.
The downstream monitoring station, however, registered a flow level of 7.80 meters on Aug. 25, compared to 8.24 meters on the same date in 2022, he said.