The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has again raised the alarm over imminent flooding in 31 states and many local government areas as the rainy season intensifies. Anambra State is among the 31 states that will experience high and moderate flooding. The Director-General of the agency, Mrs. Zubaida Umar, disclosed this while speaking at the 2024 Flood Early Warnings Sensitisation Programme in Awka, Anambra State.
Since community participation was critical to mitigating the impact of flooding, Umar called on community and opinion leaders, women and youths to support proactive measures to mitigate flooding during the rainy season. The sensitization programme was jointly organised by NEMA and Anambra State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).
In April this year, the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Prof. Joseph Ustev, had during the unveiling of the 2024 Annual Flood Outlook warned that 148 local government areas across 31 states were among the highly probable flood risk areas. Some of the listed states include Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano and Katsina. Other states to be affected by the flooding are Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba and Yobe.
While the flood alarm is timely and commendable, we urge the flood-prone states and local government areas to initiate far-reaching measures to mitigate the impact of the imminent flooding. If the recent rainfall in Lagos State is anything to go by, the flooding this year is likely to be very severe. Therefore, all the 31 states should brace up to the flood challenge by cleaning drainage channels and canals, as well as providing temporary camps for displaced people. This is the time the states should make contingent plans and be prepared for the rains and flooding.
We enjoin the communities, town union leaders, women and youths to work with government’s agency to safeguard communities at risk, protect critical infrastructure and lend support to the victims of flood. According to NEMA, the 2022 floods killed about 665 Nigerians, displaced not less than 2,437,411 persons and affected a total of 4,476,867 persons. Over 2,400 people were injured. About 82,035 houses were damaged and 332,327 hectares of land were affected.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in all 64 per cent of households were affected by the flood in 2022, which impacted livelihood, housing, food sources and access to basic services, such as health facilities and schools. The impacts of the flood were higher in rural areas (74 per cent) than in urban areas with about 40 per cent. The mostly affected states were Bayelsa (99 per cent), Jigawa (94 per cent), Nasarawa (70 per cent), Kogi (70 per cent), Delta (57 per cent), and Anambra (23 per cent). Also, in 2023, about 33,983 persons were affected by floods across the country.
Beyond the annual flood alerts, the federal government should come up with sustainable measures to save lives and livelihoods from the destructive impacts of yearly floods. We cannot continue to lose lives, crops and houses each time there is flood. There must be short-term and long-term measures to contain the ferocious floods. In fact, all tiers of government should work together to combat the annual flooding. Investing in measures to mitigate the impact of flooding should be given urgent attention.
We believe that construction of dams along the flood routes can help stem the flooding in such areas. Most state governors do little or nothing to check flooding. They only wait for the flood alerts and quickly set up an ad hoc committee, which may not have adequate resources to combat the flood. We urge the governors to change the narrative and start doing something concrete to ameliorate the huge impacts of flooding in their domains.
Although flooding has been traced to climate change, flooding in Nigeria is usually caused by indiscriminate construction on natural flood plains and storm water paths together with poor drainage systems in many residential areas. There are also many water channels filled with waste. The situation is equally exacerbated by lax in enforcement of environmental laws. Perhaps, the reintroduction of monthly sanitation exercise by some state governments will go a long way in ensuring that water channels are cleaned.