The Executive Director, Development Specs Academy, Abuja, Dr. Okey Ikechukwu, has blamed urban planners for the massive flooding currently ravaging several parts of the country.
Ikechukwu said it would not be fair to put all the blames on the government as the problem is a violation and disregard of the law in the past.
The expert stated this while speaking as a guest on Channels TV Sunrise Daily, on Wednesday, monitored by Persecondnews.
Speaking on the flood situation, he noted that town planners in most states do not carry out necessary studies to find out about the geology of the lands they allocate to people and the type of houses that should be built in the areas they are developing.
He said: “Urban planners have not been sensitive to the aqua geology of the areas they are developing. So you see state governments developing new areas without even sometimes doing enough tests to know the kind of buildings that should be there; so that is part of the problem.
“Why would flood cover someone’s roof if you have intelligent urban planning that works with the ingredients of the environment?
“So the absence of the global view of the environment in terms of the geology of it, in terms of geography and that is what we are suffering now.”
Ikechukwu urged town planners to always do proper study of areas before developing them, as houses have been built in river areas which were mistaken for drylands.
“When you create a dam you reduce the amount of water going downstream and we have been creating dams.
“That means that what used to be part of the riverbed and floodplains over the years were mistaken for dry land and so people began to build more and more on the riverbed.
“Where you have towns between Onitsha and Delta where the River Niger used to be, now have sand in the middle of the River Niger.
“We have many cities that are living below the supposed water level because for a long time they mistook what is not dry land for dry land,” he said.
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