Agency Says Violation Of Environmental Laws, Greed Responsible For Flooding

The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) says distortions of town planning guidelines and disregard for environmental laws are responsible for floods and environmental challenges in the country.

NIHSA’s Director-General, Mr Moses Beckley, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday.

“There are environmental laws and there are also town planning guidelines and restrictions.“In other words, for any town, for any place there are guidelines as to where you should construct, build or erect anything or where you should not.

“Of course there are places that are meant for building the house.

“But in a situation whereby people now disregard such restrictions and then build in the areas where they shouldn’t build, then they are looking for trouble.

“Who is to blame?

“I was in Zaria and I discovered that the river channels were tampered with, therefore, reducing the flow of the river.

“Consequently, that had a flash back which eventually flooded on the environment and affected the people staying in that environment.

“Unfortunately, most of our people tend to do these things deliberately in order to attract relief, rights, financial relief and that shouldn’t be the case, especially in these days where you have resources dwindling.

“Such release does not come regularly and then what happens to all the properties destroyed and sometime if live lost, how do you replace, so we need to be wiser and do the needful.’’

Read More:

http://guardian.ng/news/agency-says-violation-of-environmental-laws-greed-responsible-for-flooding/

Nigeria Marks Children’s Day Amid Boko Haram Violation Of Minors

Nigeria has joined the international community in commemorating Children’s Day amid concern at the use of minors to perpetrate terrorist acts by the Boko Haram sect.

Locally, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the choice of the theme of violence against children and the urgent need to stop it was apt and timely.

Officials said it spoke eloquently to the current difficult circumstances facing children in Nigeria today especially in the Northeast.

Children bear the biggest brunt of the insurgency with the conflict having severely constrained full scale provision of health services thereby threatening their right to survival.

In Borno State, the region worst affected by terror, children have not been to school for more than one year. More children and women have been used as suicide bombers in Northeast Nigeria in the first five months of this year than during the whole of last year, according to reports collated by UNICEF.

In 2014, 26 suicide attacks were recorded compared to 27 attacks as of May 2015. In at least three-quarters of these incidents, children and women were reportedly used to carry out the attacks.

Girls and women have been used to detonate bombs or explosives belts at crowded locations, such as market places and bus stations. “Children are not instigating these suicide attacks; they are used intentionally by adults in the most horrific way,” said Jean Gough, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria.

“They are first and foremost victims – not perpetrators.”

Credit: CAJ News