Flooded states tell Mamora, new NIWA boss to start with dredging Niger, Benue
States bordering two major rivers in Nigeria, River Niger and Benue have made a passionate appeal to the new Managing Director of National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora to immediately begin the dredging of both rivers to save their lives and properties.
Checks by Business Hilights Intelligence Unit (BHIU), the investigative arm of Business Hilights Publications showed that all the states on the stretch are currently under the burden of being submerged as water levels kept rising.
States under the siege of flooding by both rivers include Niger, Benue, Kebbi, Delta, Anambra and Bayelsa States.
Already, over 100 persons have lost their lives and properties worth billions lost in Niger State, more than 11 in Anambra and others states have varying degrees of loses associated with flooding in the last three weeks.
In Bayelsa, the state government has closed all schools pending the return of calm on the water bodies.
It would be recalled that the former Speaker of Lagos State House of Assembly and one-time Senator, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora had on Wednesday this week, formally resumed duty as the new Managing Director of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) at the agency’s headquarters in Lokoja, Kogi State, pledging to work as a team player in moving the authority to greater heights.
Mamora, in his address shortly after taking over from the former Acting Managing Director, Danladi Ibrahim, described NIWA as “a goldmine” which has remained largely untapped by the government, adding that the nation has a lot to benefit when the right things are done.
He said an effective inland waterways transportation system would bring about sanity on the highways and help in reducing high death rates occasioned by road accidents.
Mamora, while pledging to look into ways of addressing some of challenges hampering the smooth operations of the agency, however, called on staff of NIWA to join hands with him as a team in actualising the vision and mission of the organization.
Earlier, Danladi in his remark outlined some of the challenges facing the authority to include inadequate funding, poor remuneration, lack of infrastructures in navigable waterways, operational and jurisdictional conflicts with some sister agencies and state governments.
