Flooding: Dredging of Rivers Niger, Benue, Kaduna To Gulp Over $20b

The Managing Director, Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (HYPPADEC), Abubakar Yelwa says clamour by Nigerians for the dredging of Rivers Niger, Benue and Kaduna to check perennial flooding in affected areas will be difficult for the federal government to handle without intervention from international donor agencies.

Yelwa disclosed this while speaking at the 2023 stakeholders meeting on flood mitigation and other related issues in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, noting that the estimated cost for dredging of the rivers as at 1983 when the federal government asked for the cost was $2billion, adding that the cost had astronomically gone up over 10 times.

The HYPPADEC MD, while responding to suggestions from participants at the meeting to mitigate 2023 flood prediction by the Nigerian Metreological Agency, said the commission would embark on aforestration programme, adding that trees would be planted in five hectares of land in each of the five local government areas in Kwara North senatorial district.

Meanwhile other speakers at the forum called for multi-sectoral approach towards mitigating flood in Kwara state and beyond.