The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, has said that his ministry budgets about N1bn annually for the supply of water and sanitation facilities to internally displaced persons ravaged by the activities of insurgents in the North-East.
Adamu also stated that the Federal Government was working out measures that would enable it to transfer water from River Congo to Lake Chad in order to prevent the lake from drying up.
The minister disclosed this when the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja, according to a statement issued by the ministry’s Director of Information and Public Relations, Margaret Umoh, on Friday.
Speaking on the cooperation between Nigeria and the UN as regards reintegrating citizens ravaged by the insurgency in the North-East, Adamu stated that the ministry had been budgeting about N1bn annually for water supply and sanitation facilities for IDPs nationwide.
He said the N1bn annual budgetary allocation had been on since the past two years, adding that the Federal Government on behalf of other governments of the Lake Chad Basin Commission was planning an international conference to proffer solutions that would save Lake Chad from drying up.
Adamu said, “In the next 50 to 100 years, based on hydrological perspective, if nothing is done now, the lives of people in that region, who depend on the lake as their source of livelihood, would be in danger as the lake faces the risk of drying up.”
The minister called for cheaper and workable solutions to save the lake from extinction.
He noted that the memorandum of understanding signed between the Lake Chad Basin Commission and Power China International Group Limited in 2016 to save the lake from drying up could be actualised by the transfer of water from Congo Basin to Lake Chad Basin.
Adamu said study done by Power China showed that it was technically feasible to transfer water from river Congo to Lake Chad, thereby increasing the level of water in the lake.
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