The National Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (N-HYPPADEC) announced yesterday that it will begin interventions in 30 flood-prone communities in Nasarawa State.

The commission’s managing director (MD), Abubakar Yelwa, disclosed this during a needs assessment, enumeration, and community mapping training exercise in Lafia.

The MD, represented by the Head of Press and Public Affairs, Mr Nura Wakili, said that the beneficiary communities were spread across seven local councils: Awe, Kokona, Doma, Nasarawa, Toto, Keffi, and Karu.

According to him, the commission had the mandate to intervene in ecological and other challenges faced by communities affected by the operations of hydroelectric dams and the main rivers and tributaries supplying water to the dams.

He said the commission’s programmes provide a complete package that includes physical projects and socioeconomic support interventions for affected communities. Yelwa said the needs assessment, enumeration, and community mapping exercise in Nasarawa State was in keeping with the commission’s philosophy of a bottom-up approach to interventions based on the communities’ identified needs.

“We do not believe in sitting in our headquarters in Minna or our liaison office in Abuja to design and execute programmes for communities. We want to go and see and hear first-hand information on the condition of the communities, hear the inhabitants’ challenges and their peculiarities. This will guide us to develop our action plan for the execution of projects and programmes in the communities,” he said.

He further said that the exercise in Nasarawa State would be concluded on October 19, after which the collected data would be analysed, and a comprehensive action plan developed for project implementation. He explained that the commission had intervened in several flood control projects, such as constructing drainage systems to mitigate flooding in flood-prone communities in member states.

“We also have the N-HYPPADEC Resettlement Housing Scheme to resettle riverine communities ravaged by incessant flooding that has defied control. We have 250 housing units of the scheme in Niger State and 150 units in Kogi,” he added.

The MD appealed to the government and people of Nasarawa State to cooperate with the commission’s officials in the field by ensuring their safety. The State Commissioner for Environmental and Natural Resources, Mr Yakubu Kwanta, officially opened the training exercise and thanked the Federal Government for including the state in N-HYPPADEC intervention programmes.

Represented by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mr Garba Rosha, he charged the enumerators with doing a thorough job in the field to ensure the communities received the kind of intervention they truly desired from N-HYPPADEC.