In the last few days, Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, has been in the news for both wrong and pathetic reasons. The flooding incident in that North Eastern part of Nigeria has been described as one incident too many and the worst in the state in 30 years.
Whether it is climate change or negligence on the part of concerned authorities as have been variously adduced, what is happening in Borno which has claimed lives, sacked homes, submerged communities and destroyed farmlands is a case of nature emptying its bowel with fury.
By the last count, official figure puts the number of people who have died in the flood at 30 which may increase as many people are said to be trapped in their homes. Additionally, about 414,000 persons have been displaced while, cumulatively, about 100 million people have been affected.
Borno flooding is not an isolated case nor is it the first of its kind in Nigeria. Just a couple of years ago, the nation witnessed what could pass easily as disaster of a century that claimed several lives, submerged communities and destroyed farmlands across 31 states of the country.
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Records showed that 44,099 houses were partially damaged; 45,249 houses totally damaged, 76,168 hectares of farmland are partially damaged while 70,566 hectares of farmland were completely destroyed by the flood.
Furthermore, over 500 people were reported dead. 1,411,051 persons while the affected displaced persons who were moved out of their location were up to 790,254. About 1,546 persons that were displaced were injured.
Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development at the time, who confirmed these, added that 44,099 houses were partially damaged; 45,249 houses were totally damaged, 76,168 hectares of farmland were partially damaged while 70,566 hectares of farmland were completely destroyed.
With all these happening in a country with a history of widening housing gap put at 20 million and 28 million units by the World Bank and Central Bank of Nigeria respectively, the destruction of houses by a natural event that could be checked underlines negligence on the part of those who have the responsibility to save both lives and properties.
In the present Borno case, the displacement of 414,000 persons means, at least, 82,800 houses have been destroyed at an average of five persons per household or family. This is a very significant addition to the housing shortage and the country’s low homeownership rate which is estimated at 25 percent of the country’s over 200 million population.
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In the last three to four days, messages of solidarity and sympathy for victims of the flood disaster have been pouring into Borno. In the same vein, government has been busy with providing relief materials to settle and feed the displaced persons, many of whom are now living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in the state.
The vice president, Kashim Shetima, was quoted recently as saying that the government would be providing 50 trucks of rice for the victims. This, according to public commentators, is a good gesture from the government, adding however that time has come for the government to look beyond these quick win solutions that come as consumables and do what would prevent the disaster from happening.
“This is a natural disaster quite alright, but the scale could have been reduced significantly if the needful had been done,” Henry Ibeneme, a public affairs commentator, noted.
According to him, though the climate change argument holds water, to the extent that flooding of this scale in an arid zone cannot be explained otherwise, “the weight of negligence is quite heavy on the appropriate authorities in the state vis-a-viz the collapse of the Alau Dam.”
The Alau Dam, situated about 20 kilometres away from Maiduguri, was constructed to hold a major reservoir on the Ngadda River which is one of the tributaries of Lake Chad. With extreme rainfall events hitting the North-East state in recent weeks, it has collapsed.
It is the collapse of the dam that has brought about the disaster Borno is witnessing today with about 70 percent of Maiduguri, the capital city, flooded. This is reminiscent of the 2022 flood which was caused by the release of water from the Lagdo Dam, leading to Nigeria signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Cameroon on how the processes and the release of the water would go so that it would not cause too much damage in the two countries.
In his article titled ‘Borno flood, dams and climate change,’ Greg Odogwu noted that the Alau Dam overflows every year, meaning that this is not the first time it is happening. He added that people have died and farms and homesteads washed away.
“Every year, as the water rises in the dam, the spillway is opened by government officials, and this activity impacts the nearby farms. There have been several reports of these incidents in the years past, whereby indigenes who live on the shores of the river are severely impacted during the opening of the dam,” Odogwu recalled.
“For these residents, it is somewhat like an annual ritual. The Chad Basin Development Authority announces that the gates of the dam are about to be opened which would overflow into the Ngadda River. The poor residents struggle to evacuate. They rent houses in other areas of the city for, at least, three to four months while the river overflows, and thereafter go back when the river runs dry,” he added.
In the light of this, Ibeneme stressed that something very urgent has be done to endure this seasonal trauma the residents are subjected to, noting that the unfortunate seasonal flooding incidents across Nigeria and their devasting impacts are sad reminders of an assertion by William Shakespeare that “it’s either the gods are angry or the earth too saucy with the gods’ incenses insurrection.”
