Managing Director, HJRBDA Alhaji Ma'amun Da'u Aliyu
By Salisu K Ismail
The Managing Director of Hadejia Jama'are River Basin Development Authority Alhaji Ma'amun Da'u Aliyu says very soon the issue of flooding along communities nearing the Basin would be a thing of the past.
The Managing Director stated this in an interview with newsmen in his office, in Kano.
He said that, currently effort is on top gear toward curtailing the issues of typha grass and saltation along communities across the three states of Kano, Jigawa and Bauchi which are under Hadejia Jama'are River Basin Development Authority.
"The bedeviling issue of typha grass and saltation that are technically blocking the river's channels and stop the water from running are the major courses of flood in that areas," he noted.
However, Mr Aliyu explained that, In the present 2021 financial budget, HJRBDA has a provision to acquire a kind of equipment known as acquatic excavator that would have the capacity to get into the River and off-root the typha grass that's in the middle of the water.
"When that is done, the water would have enough way to pass and the issue of flooding would be a thing of a past," he emphasized.
Ma'amun Aliyu also revealed that, HJRBDA is expecting the arrival of the excavator machines lately by October this year and that's exactly when the flood is expected at it's peak.
According to him, by the time the machines arrived, The Basin Development Authority will get fully into the activity of removing the typha grass and equally to desalt the River belt from saltation problem that's there.
"We would be able to dredged and expand the river sites so that, there would be adequate flow of water," he added.
Commenting on the speculation that going round that, the yearly flooding was as a result of holding the water by the Authority, Mr Ma'amun Aliyu cleared that by law, HJRBDA is mandated to continuaslly release water because stoping the water may create it's scarcity, harm and course problem to the side communities of the River.
On the other measures to protect communities experiencing flood among the benefiting States of Hadejia Jama'are, The MD cited example of Auyo town in Jigawa state, saying that, his Agency had erected an embankment of about 3.8km in length and 3-4 meters in height.
"Such a measure, would give total protection to Auyo town which was sometime submerged due to the effect of flooding, and the work is almost 70% in completion now," he pointed.
Speaking on the TRIMING Project, The Managing Director HJRBDA expressed that, the project is an intervention by the Federal Government in collaboration with World Bank mainly to improve access to irrigation facilities in the areas that have enough water and enough land for irrigation.
He said that, through the project, the loan or grant that the Federal government secured from World Bank is expanded to the three River Basins in the country namely Hadejia Jama'are, River Benue and Sokoto River Basin.
"The Transformation Irrigation Management In Nigeria (TRIMING) was aimed at improving access to irrigation and providing more facilities and also rehabilitating the existing irrigation infrastructure and where possible adding more facilities and expanding the scheme"
Additionally, "The project is also training the water users Association, that's the farmers using the water for irrigation so that there capacity would be improved because what's going to happen at the end of the TRIMING after the handing over is that, The management of secondary and tertiary structures of the scheme will be completely handed over to the farmers, So that government will no longer be concern with the business of going into the scheme deeply to rehabilite or maintain the secondary or tertiary structures and this is the trend world over now," he concluded
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