Ben Ezechime, Enugu
The State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) has cautioned residents of Enugu State over anti-environmental behavioral change in view of flash floods in parts of the state.
The Acting Executive Secretary of the Agency, Chinasa Mbah, said this while speaking to newsmen in Enugu.
She said that residents of the state needed total environmental behavioural change to check the spate of flash floods.
Mbah further disclosed that the state government was striving to curtail the situation but the negative attitude of residents remained a setback.
She condemned the attitude of residents by using the drainage as refuse dumps especially during rainfall; not bagging of their refuse and allowing it to spill into drainages and outright building make-shift structures on waterways/drainage.
“This negative attitude is what usually blocks these drainages and waterways making it possible for flash floods to occur.
“Enugu State metropolis drainage system is well-planned not to allow any flash flood happening,” she said.
The acting executive secretary said that the agency had done a lot of senstisation and awareness in various platforms and even running jingles in some local media with a local language on the need to free waterways and drainages.
“Gov. Peter Mbah had earlier set-up a Flood Task Force Committee mandated to open up all waterways in the state and ensure that all stakeholders fulfill their task leading to elimination of flooding and its devastation in the state.
“The team force is working with the various local government chairmen and SEMA to achieve this and the team and council chairmen have done a lot within the past months,” she said.
Mbah said that the agency was collaborating with the Enugu Capital Territory Development Agency (ECTDA) to see that people in neighbourhoods in Enugu metropolis take the right communal environmental actions for the good of all.
She said that SEMA was also collaborating with the Enugu State Waste Management Authority (ESWAMA) to see that refuse receptacles and centres do not overflow and enter into the drainages, thereby blocking free flow of water.
“We need a total change of attitude on the environment from our people and our people should see the environment as their own.
“We can all work and display a positive attitude to ensure the environment is healthy all the time for the common good of all,” Mbah added.
