Poor preparation may worsen flooding devastation

Flooding devastation has persistently put Nigeria in the global news for the wrong reasons. The country’s profile may worsen if stringent efforts are not made to up its preparation ante.

This genre of natural disaster has consistently escalated the nation’s already alarming fatality, health, out-of-school children, internally displaced persons, poverty, development, and other human index records.

Unfortunately, as grim as the profile is, there have not been deliberate and sustained efforts to contain this monster. Although it persistently gives early signs followed by warnings by relevant institutions to provoke adequate prevention and management and check annual devastation.

According to UNICEF, 34 of the 36 states were affected by floods, with 1.3 million people displaced in 2022. The world body says more than 600 people lost their lives and 200, 000 houses destroyed. It also says over 2.5 million Nigerians needed humanitarian support even as the flood escalated cases of waterborne diseases, cholera, respiratory infection, skin diseases, and diarrhoea.

About two years later, the story remained unchanged. In its September 2024 report, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports, “The flood situation across Nigeria has become a major humanitarian crisis, with 31 states and 180 local government areas severely affected. Over 1,083,141 individuals have been impacted by the relentless rains, leading to widespread displacement, loss of lives, and destruction of homes and livelihoods. The floods have left 641,598 persons displaced, 285 people dead, and 2,504 injured. Houses, farmlands, and critical infrastructure have been devastated, with 98,242 homes affected.” The year’s devastation still rages as rain is at its peak and the possibility of wreaking worse havoc is still possible.

On September 10, the Alau Dam in Konduga Local Government Area, Borno State, collapsed due to heavy rain and structural damage, causing severe flooding in neighbouring Maiduguri and Jere local government areas. Reports quote the Director General of Borno State Management Agency, Dr Mohammed Bakindo, confirming this week that 150 people were killed and 120, 000 persons displaced in the state.

Save the Children, a leading humanitarian organisation for children, says more than 400, 000 people have been displaced from their homes across the states, while three million children were without school. With huge devastation which included submerging 70 per cent of Maiduguri, affecting over one million residents, and sacking major city locations, the Borno flood has been described as “the worst flood in 30 years”.

To compound the national environmental tragedy, while Nigeria was battling the Borno devastation, Cameroon announced the release of water from its largest dams following intense rainfall in West and Central Africa, prompting the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency to warn 11 states of impending flooding. The release of water from the Cameroon dam is a recurrent cause of anxiety and panic that gets the Nigerian government to issue press statements instead of finding a lasting solution to the problem. 

About five weeks after the Borno tragedy, precisely on October 16, the release of water from Oyan Dam by the Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority in Ogun State put cross sections of Ogun and Lagos residents in panic mode. These recurrent national embarrassments have to stop.

The persistent flooding in the country calls for an urgent need to give prime attention to this needless and avoidable disaster and take holistic measures to tame it and save people from unnecessary panic, anxiety, fatalities, and devastation.

Every raining season, Nigerians count their losses, as floods adversely affect schools, displace families, sack farmers, chase industries out of business, plunge farmers into debt, and gulp huge sums that should have been diverted to building infrastructure and delivering welfare to the people. 

The FG and states must heed NIHSA’s advice “to step up vigilance and deploy adequate preparedness measures to reduce possible impacts of flooding that may occur as a result of the increase in flow levels of our major rivers at this period.”

State governments must support the FG to make investments in climate change by having workable and innovative strategies to tame flooding and provide succour for flooding victims.

Governments must enforce their laws by ensuring proper environmental planning and management while prosecuting the people building on flood plains. They must also engage in massive sensitisation in Indigenous languages to educate people on the importance of construction and proper use of the drainage system.

There should be efforts by governments to build quality multiple dams to backstop the release of water from dams within and outside Nigeria. They should also build channels to divert water away from farms and bushes to avoid loss of farm produce.