The recent flooding in major parts of Nigeria has left the areas devasted with death casualty tolling 603 fatalities. According to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouk, about 2,5 million.people have been affected by the flooding.
She further noted 1.3 million people had been displaced; 2,407 people had been injured. A total of 121,318 houses have been partially damaged while 82,053 were destroyed. The minister said that 108,392 hectares of farmlands has been partially affected while 332,327 hectares of farmland were completely destroyed.
More saddening was the fact that the International Monetary Fund has warned that tthe flooding incidents in these areas will worsen food insecurity and lead to further food price increase.
While highlighting the economic implications of the recent floods, Mai Farid of the African Department of IMF said that “We are very cognizant of the challenge that the flood of that magnitude and how it affected Nigeria in neighbouring countries. We also recognise Chad and Cameroon have also been hit. And absolutely, you’re totally right in terms of the supply of agricultural production, it is going to drop which will put even further pressure on prices. And in addition, it the floods have affected some of the transportation networks which means makes it even harder for food to transfer into the country or even out in any essence storage.”
She further stressed that Nigeria and most sub Saharan nations in Africa are adversely prone as it concerns food insecurity and are most suceptible to unstable climatic conditions and yet they pose the most insignificant attention to address these consistent concerns.
