Dredging is Sustainable Solution to the Perennial Flooding in Nigeria - Orogun

 An Environmentalist, Austin Orogun has opined that dredging the rivers Niger and Benue is a sustainable solution to the perennial flooding in Nigeria.

Austin gave a depth analysis of how the government can achieve this by dredging the related rivers that are causing this enormous damages to the flood prone areas in the country.

According to Chinua Achebe in his book, "The trouble with Nigeria", he stated unequivocally that the trouble with Nigeria is that of leadership.

This "perennial" flood disaster is solvable. The Rivers Niger and Benue must be dredged. This will enable the Niger-Benue trough as well as their distributorys to accommodate more waters. The rivers are silted hence waters overflow their banks into surrounding lowland areas along the course.

The flood situation is becoming common as the world population is increasing. This rapid population growth rate directly increases the land-use pressure and in turn increasing environmental pollution.

Don't lose focus of the fact that for some years now, meteorologists and climatologists have been warning on the dangers of climate change: this flood, as it is in other parts of the world, is one of the negative impacts of the climate change disaster. This flood, as being rumoured in some quarters, is not politics but simple effect of climate change... However, with good leadership of the right political will this problem is solvable.

Yes. The current flood disaster we are experiencing is mild (as it is being managed) compare to when the dams along the River Niger, and the one in Cameroun should break.

We need to prevail on the governments of the countries along the Rivers Niger and Benue to go into bilateral agreement with a view to dredging the rivers. Until the dredging is done, this perennial flood may not go sooner.

Austin Orogun (Geo-Environmentlist)