Being the fact that flooding has been becoming epidemic in the Nigerian societies as rainstorm claimed the lives of about 50 people in Jigawa state as stated by the state’s emergency Management agency last week, the National Emergency Management agy NEMA CDS group of NYSC Borno State organized and carried out a debate on Wednesday in Nema Secretariat ground on whether “governments or individuals are reponsibe for flooding’.
The debate was interesting as young graduates of different professions and academic backgrounds gathered and brainstormed over the matter and arrived at conclusion.
The male Corp members were on the stand that governments are responsible for flooding while there female counterparts were on the opinion that individuals are responsible.
The two parties debated with logical and referencial evidences and arrived at the fact that despite individuals’ negative behaviors to environments like cutting trees without replacement, blocking water flowing channels, building houses on erosion and flood prone areas results flooding but government should be at the forefront to make efforts for having a flooding-free environments as the primary responsibility of every government is to protect the lives and properties of the citizens which flooding go otherwise.
The female counterparts were defeated with reference to governments’ inability to strictly implement environmental laws, corrupt officials appointed to regulate environmental activities, lack of construction and maintenance of drainages among others.
Many solutions were proffered like; review of governments’ laws and policies and their strict adherence, public awareness on how to relate with environments, improvement on the construction of water channels, afforestation and many more.
Zaharaddeen Muhammad Azare, a Corp member writes from Maiduguri.
