Director-General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, Mansur Matazu says flooding has cost Nigeria $4.6 billion, significantly impacting the country’s GDP.
Matazu made the disclosure at a workshop on increasing access to climate information services for national development and food security in Nigeria.
The event was hosted by NIMET, in partnership with the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, HEDA.
He cited a World Bank Survey commissioned by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and stated that the research was based on a fast assessment of the monetary implications of 2022 flood damages in terms of livelihoods, farmlands, and infrastructure.
Matazu noted that the country was recovering from the disaster and was working on long-term flood solutions to boost the agricultural sector and support Nigeria’s current food security strategy.
He said, “The damage the flood has caused in the form of livelihood, farmland, and infrastructure- it has cost the country over $4.6 billion, and that is a significant weight on our GDP.“
In other news…
The Nigerian Government has lost an estimated $16tn to natural gas flaring in 10 years, according to a report by the Energy Institute (EI).
The Institute in it’s 72nd edition of the ‘Statistical Review of World Energy 2023’ said the amount was lost from 2012 to 2022.
A breakdown of the statistics showed that upstream and downstream oil and gas firms operating in the country flared the highest amount of gas in 2012, estimated at 12.9 billion cubic metres of natural gas, 9.2 billion cubic metres in 2013, 8.3 billion in 2014, and 7.5 billion cubic metres in 2015.
The flare kept decreasing as the year rolled by, with 7.2 billion cubic metres flared in 2016. Flaring again, rose to 7.5 billion cubic metres in 2017, before plummeting to 7.3 billion cubic metres in 2018, and then rose to 7.8 billion cubic metres in 2019.
