National Daily

‘Nigerians are not weather-wise’— Meteorologist

By ABIOSE ADELAJA

A weather forecaster has said the cause of many environmental problems in the country today is because most Nigerians are not weather-wise. Deputy Manager of the Hydrometeorological department of the Nigeria Meteorology Agency, Shehu Olayanju told Science that some problems such as flooding and poor agricultural yields, leading to food scarcity, could have been avoided if Nigerians paid attention to early warning weather signals issued by the Agency.

“Our mandate is to issue early warning signals so that the public (both government and private) so that they can take heed. But when they fail to do so, many problems result,” he said

Illustrating with the present food crisis, he said; “When we give rainfall prediction, it is so that farmers can know when to begin the onset of planting and when to prepare for harvest. But if they ignore it, this may lead to poor agricultural yields, which in turn causes the food scarcity and prices go up.”

Another problem caused by failure to heed weather warning, he said is, flooding.
“One of the reasons flooding occur in Nigeria today is because government have failed to exercise authority on where and were not to build houses. There is what we call the Flood Plain Zones and building codes must be enforced to ensure such zones are avoided for building houses.”

When not enforced, people are not properly guided to build houses at the right place and the consequence, he explained, is that during torrential rainfalls, the water passage is blocked by those houses built there. When water retains in the buildings for too long, it begins to weaken the structure/ foundation of the houses and after many years, a building collapse could occur resulting in loss of lives and property.

He advised that Nigerians should not be deceived by our naturally favorable weather, which is often what is responsible for the neglect of weather forecast.

“In developed countries, the citizens don't joke with weather forecast. There is a public weather service that predicts the weather of each day and most of these people do not go out without finding out whether they should take a sweater along or not. But because of our good weather in Nigeria, we take these things for granted.”

While extolling the Lagos State government's effort in creating drainage systems in many water logged areas and enjoined the public to pay attention to weather changes and forecasts.