Shiroro hydro dam station create awareness among host communities on impending flood
The Management of North South Power Company Limited (NSP) has met with host communities downstream and upstream of Shiroro hydro electric power station as well as stakeholders in disaster management to create awareness on impending flood.
Vice-Chairman of NSP, Mr Olubumi Peters, said during the 2023 NSP annual stakeholders flood sensitisation forum, that the event was to create awareness among communities involved in water based activities on flooding living around the dam.
Peters, who was represented by Mr Abdullahi Hassan, Consultant on Corporate Social Responsibility to NSP, added that the communities were those upstream and downstream of NSP on environmental hazard caused by flooding.
“This is to come up with possible ways to reduce the devastating damages to lives and property, stakeholders are to identify most effective and remedies to flooding,” he said.
He appealed to the Federal government to hasten the implementation of National Flood Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan to provide more resilience and effective response measures to mitigate impact of flooding.
The Chief Operating Officer of NSP, Mr Ugochukwu Chioke, while answering questions from host communities, said the company usually alert communities before spilling water from its reservoir.
“Before we release water, we do send out letters, convey meeting and daily public announcement on radio and television stations and then sound warning sirens to alert communities.
“We do this to enable people living around river banks to vacate the area and we give them time to vacate river banks before releasing water,” he said.
Chioke, however, said that 52 per cent of workforce in NSP were from Niger state, adding that the company would continue to execute meaningful projects in host communities as its corporate social responsibility.
In his remarks, Prof. Mansur Matazu, Director General of Nigerian Metrological Agency (NiMET), disclosed that there would be more violent convective activities due to higher temperatures resulting to occasional downpour.
Matazu, represented by Mr Pwajok Gyang, state Met Inspector in Niger, said that settlement downstream and upstream of Kaduna river basin are likely going to be affected.
He called on relevant disaster management agencies to take necessary steps to reduce to barest minimum the negative effects of flood.
Stakeholders from NEMA, NESREA, state and local government officials were in attendance.
