Over 2 million Nigerians displaced by flood in 2022, says NEMA

The National Emergency Management Agency, (NEMA) has said that 662 persons lost their lives, 3,174 suffered injuries and 2,430,445 individuals were displaced by the 2022 flood disaster in the country.

The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Mustapha Habib Ahmed, disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the one-week Strategic Executive Seminar for NEMA staff and wider Nigerian Emergency Management Stakeholders in Abuja.

He said that thousands of houses, hectares of farmlands, and several critical national assets were destroyed by the raging floods. Ahmed said NEMA in collaboration with state governments and other partners are working towards long-term recovery of impacted communities across the nation.

He urged participants to use the opportunity to interact with one another, share experiences and develop holistic approaches to disaster and crisis management in Nigeria.

He expressed confidence that the expertise of resource persons from the Bournemouth University Disaster Management Centre will surely make the capacity-building program a resounding success.

NEMA Director of Human Resource Management, Musa Zakari said rapid climate changes have increased the frequency of natural disasters across the nation, hence the objective of the seminar is to assist the agency and its critical stakeholders in providing a unique international brand of disaster management education, training, and simulation that can support existing senior officers training provision within the country.

“We may need to re-examine some fundamentally new and more efficient approach to Disaster Management,” Zakari said.