The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), has stressed the need for people to understand their environment and do all they could to protect it.

NEMA South-South Zonal Coordinator, Mr. Umesi Emenike, who made the call in an interview with The Tide in his office last week, said both individual and collective efforts were needed to solve the environmental problems facing the country like flooding.

He emphasised that every individual should be able to know the kind of environmental challenges of the area where he lives and contribute to solving them.

“Each one of us lives in an area. We know what the challenges in our areas are. If you live in some parts of Mgbuoba, you know that every year the place is flooded. The question you should ask yourself is what have I done five months before the flooding started. Did we come together to think of a solution to this issues? Do we need a drain? Do we need to clear the existing drain? Is the existing drain too small? Is there something we can do about it? And so on?.

According to him, NEMA had carried out series of sensitisation campaign and advocacy since February 2011, when Nigeria Meteorological Agency NIMET) came out with the rainfall predictions for the year which indicated that there would be maximal rainfall this year.

He said people were asked to clean their drainages, stop dumping refuse carelessly, desist from building on canals and drainage channels, create ways for water to flow in anticipation of the heavy rainfalls “but unfortunately, in this country people wait till disaster happens before they will begin to listen”.

Umesi regretted that even when the state government made arrangement to relocate people living in flood prone areas like the watersides, to avoid the imminent danger, they refused to move, claiming that those places were their home lands.

On the level of the agency’s preparedness to tackle flood disasters in the zone, he said, NEMA has the skill, the facilities and the personnel to rescue flood victims but would want people to prevent flooding.

“I’m not interested in going to rescue people. I want people to behave in such a way that there will be no need for me to come to rescue them”, he said.

He observed that naturally the South-South states are the coastal states and the water levels in these states are higher than other areas, so it is expected that there will be some level of flooding, whenever it rains heavily and people should be ready to adapt to the situation.

He advised that whenever there is heavy rainfall, people should begin to look out for their family members to avoid being victims of the flooding.

The zonal coordinator commended the Rivers State Government for the precautionary measures taken towards the prevention of flooding in the state and asked other South-South governors to follow suit.

He however, appealed to local government authorities in the state and other bodies in charge of approving building plans to always take a careful look at the plans before approving them so as to minimise the cases of people building on canals and drainage channels.

Calista Ezeaku