Last weekend’s flood disaster in Adamawa State that led to loss of human lives has been blamed on the failure of federal government to build a buffer dam on the Nigerian side.

The flood was as a result of an over-run of water from Lagdo dam constructed by the government of Cameroon.

The minister of water resources, Mrs. Stella Ochekpe, who dropped this hint while fielding questions from State House correspondents in Abuja at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, said that successive Nigerian governments had failed to construct the buffer dam in Adamawa.

She, however, gave the assurance that the President Jonathan administration was ready to conduct a feasibility study prior to constructing the buffer dam.

Ochekpe said that she had visited the affected area in the company of other top government officials and lamented that flood disaster had been a recurring issue since Cameroon built its own Lagdo dam. Nigeria was expected to build a similar buffer dam to check the flooding whenever Cameroonian authorities decided to release water from their own dam.

She said, “We were expected to build a buffer dam on our own side. Already, pre-feasibility study has been done. We are seeking approval now to go ahead to do full feasibility study to construct our own dam that will help to reduce the effect of likely flooding that would occur resulting from future release of water from the Lagdo dam in Cameroon”.

She said that the release of the water was something that had to be done regularly especially in the peak of the rains, and added that if they did not release the water regularly, what might even befall us was much more than what we saw because the whole of Yola, Jimeta and Numan would be flooded.

“We also discovered some other human activities being under taken which are not right”, She said.

Ochekpe said that land was also being allocated to people in the area by the government in the state in waterways hence exposing the lives of innocent Nigerians to danger.

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