AVERTING ANOTHER FLOOD DISASTER
The relevant authorities should do more to mitigate impact of floods
Despite recent warnings by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) that people living in flood-prone areas should relocate to higher grounds, dozens of Nigerians are losing their lives to flooding. From Ebonyi where flood is sweeping away residents of some communities in Afikpo Local Government Area to Ikorodu in Lagos State that is witnessing worsening floods which have destroyed homes and livelihoods to Adamawa and Kano States, it has been tales of woes for many Nigerians. Hundreds of homes were reportedly destroyed at the weekend in Potiskum, Yobe State. “In all my life, I have never seen so much water. It destroyed my three rooms and two toilets,” a victim, Adamu Mohammed, told the AFP.
The real challenge is that the authorities responsible for mitigating the impact of floods seem to have no actionable plans for these unfortunate Nigerians. It is not enough that people be asked to vacate flood-prone areas, as where they would be temporarily accommodated is also important. The Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, has continued to bemoan this lapse. “Floods threaten lives, infrastructure and livelihoods. No investment to build resilience is too much,” Bassey said recently following the tragedy in Niger State that claimed dozens of citizens. “They require emergency shelters and climate-proof housing, roads and other infrastructure.”
With its urbanisation rate put at 5.5 per cent yearly and considered one of the highest rates in the world, the number of Nigerians at risk or vulnerable to flood hazards is high. One needs to quickly recall the devastating effect of flooding in various parts of the country in times past. In the flood of 2012, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), no fewer than 665 people died while the World Bank estimated losses at about $6.7 billion. More than three million people were displaced across the country.
As we have repeatedly highlighted, flooding does enormous damage to the ecosystem and destroys public utilities. It also elevates the risk of hunger and malnutrition because of disruption of farmlands and commercial losses for farmers engaged in subsistence farming. But perhaps most significant is that we have lost thousands of people to flooding in the past decade while millions remain displaced. Meanwhile, the Ecological Fund was established in 1981 to have a pool of funds that would help mitigate natural disasters like flooding. From its inception, the fund originally constituted one per cent of the Federation Account but was reviewed upward to two per cent in 1992.
Unfortunately, the management of the fund has been marred with controversy, essentially due to the discretionary powers given to the president in the disbursement. Such is the abuse of the Fund that officials of both the federal and state governments now see it essentially as a slush fund to be deployed for all manner of things. At a period when the forces of nature are raging, and Nigeria seems to be at the mercy of the environment, it is imperative that the Ecological Fund be deployed strictly to tackle such challenges. But in the immediate, we implore all the relevant authorities to prepare for the rains with great diligence. The focus should be on prevention and pre-emptive intervention because little is gained when resources that should be put into developmental initiatives are dissipated in dealing with avoidable emergencies and calamities.
