Revisiting the flooding that devastated some states recently, Minister of Environment, Dr. Mohammed Abdullahi, has asked Nigerians to seek answers from their respective governors on what they did with the huge sums of money they receive routinely from the Federation Account for ecological challenges.
Recall that the Federal Government, recently accused the state governors of stealing local government funds, which was why poverty was prevalent in the country as well as inhibiting development at the grassroots.
But the governors fired back, under the aegis of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF, saying the claim by the Federal Government that states were responsible for the rise in poverty rate was baseless, even as they blamed the problem on President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s failure to check insecurity.
Speaking, yesterday, Minister of Environment said, if the governors had deployed ecological funds to tackling ecological problems in their respective states, the level of flooding that Nigeria experiences yearly, would not have been as devastating as they have been, leading to the loss of lives in most cases.
Recall that the recent flooding severely affected Kogi, Benue, Delta, Bayelsa and Jigawa states, with lives lost, many houses submerged and property destroyed.
Dr. Abdullahi maintained that while the Federal Government through the relevant ministries and agencies, including that of Environment have their roles to play in controlling and mitigating flooding, state governments must do their part with the huge sums of money they collected for ecological purposes.
The minister spoke while presenting the scorecard of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in the environmental sector from 2015 till date, at a news briefing coordinated by the Ministry of Information in Abuja, yesterday.
