The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has identified 90 local government areas which are likely to be affected by floods in 2013.
The agency's Press Officer, Manzo Ezekiel, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Saturday in Abuja.
He said that the agency carried out a vulnerability study and identified 90 local government areas in states named by the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET) Rainfall prediction 2013 to be affected by flooding.
Mr. Ezekiel said that the vulnerability study was done through NEMA's Geographical Information System.
He said that NEMA, in a partnership with a non-governmental organisation on disaster awareness creation at the grassroots, had commenced sensitisation exercise on early warnings and prevention in the affected areas.
He said that disaster awareness was also being carried out by the agency's six zonal offices in areas that were likely be affected by the floods.
Some of the states, mostly to be affected according to the NIMET prediction are Cross River, Ogun, Kogi, Oyo, Imo, Plateau, Kaduna, Bayelsa and Lagos States.
Mr. Ezekiel said that NEMA had organised consultative workshop on the 2013 rainfall prediction that was attended by state governors and their representatives on measures to be taken to avert disasters.
The prediction showed that there would be more rainfall in 2013 which might translate to flooding in most of the states. It showed that the 2013 rainfall would be higher than 2012 which means that the country might be confronted with a lot of flooding.
NIMET's Director-General, Anthony Anuforom, recently predicted that the rainfall for 2013 would be above normal as compared with the volume of rain in 2012.
He said that there would be more rains in 2013 in the northern states of Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Kwara and Zamfara.
According to Mr. Anuforom, catchment areas of River Niger and parts of the Niger Delta had higher chances of even more rainfall this year than previous years. He said that his worry was heightened by the likelihood of some communities in Cross River to be permanently dislocated.
The director general said that two other communities in Cross River would be resettled permanently from their ancestral homes for fear of being destroyed.
"We have two major communities that should be relocated. These communities are those that will suffer another major destruction, when the next flood comes.
"They are Eja in Obubra and Agwagune in Biase."
NAN
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