Governments, agencies and communities in flood prone areas have been slow and lackadaisical in responding to early warning signs issued by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) and the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) that the flood of 2023 may surpass that of 2022.
In several of the communities visited in the four affected Local Government Areas of Rivers State, National Point found out that nothing has been done to either contain or divert the floods when they come, or facilities put in place to provide shelter for those that may be displaced by the flood.
The, four local government areas impacted by the 2022 flood include Ahoada East and Ahoada West, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni ONELGA and Abua.
The South-South Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mr. Godwin Tepikor, told this publication that, his office was still putting things together and would begin to send out messages to affected communities, states and local governments in a short while.
The Chairman of the Task Force set up by the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike to respond to the disaster in the state in 2022, Dr. George Nwaeke, said he was not in a position to speak about preparations against the flood warnings because his committee was only an adhoc one set up to handle last year’s disaster. He would not also speak on whether the committee that was given N1 billion to respond to the disaster set up any structures to respond to subsequent disasters.
Despite being a flood prone state, Rivers State does not have a state emergency management agency as required by the NEMA act. It is the same story with the local governments, which ought by law to have local emergency management agencies.
A women’s leader at Okwuzi, one of the communities that was devastated by flood in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area, Mrs. Peace Mgbenwa, said nothing has been done in the community yet to respond against the disaster if it happens again. “We are mobilizing women to visit the councilor to air our concern that he should carry our message to the local government chairman to tell him let them prepare a place for IDP camp before then, not when the time comes and people will be running helter skelter looking for where to sleep. We are already in April and it has started raining too much this year,” Mgbenwa said.
At Joinkrama in one of the flood-prone communities in Ahoada West Local Government Area, residents said they were yet to see any move by government to provide facilities to assist the people. Esimvie Osuamkpe, a native of the community simply said, “Good question,” when asked what preparations were on the ground against the flood.
Dr. Maxwell Philip, who is also from Ahoada West, said the only sign of what government did was at Akinima, the local government headquarters where a shelter was set up last year because of the flood. Otherwise the other areas had not seen anything. But he said the canal around where he resides at Akenpai Eppie was cleared with a swamp boogie. “That’s the only thing we have seen done.
Last year, the flood ravaged over 30 states and submerged 82,035 houses. According to official reports, 1.4 million people were displaced, 612 people killed while 332,327 hectares of farmlands were destroyed. The entire Bayelsa State was under water for up to two months.
A particular tragic case was one that occurred on River Niger at Ogbaru in Anambra State when a boat carrying people fleeing the floods capsized and caused the death of 76 people.
The flooding was worse than the last major flood of 2012 and it stayed for up to three months in many of the places it occurred, mainly in areas near the major rivers, Niger and Benue and their tributaries and distributaries. Flooding has become seasonal in Nigeria occurring towards the tail end of the rainy seasons that takes place between the months of March and October.
Last year’s flood just like that of 2012 was partially blamed on the release of water from the Lagdo dam in neighbouring Cameroon, which began on September 13, 2022. Some experts also blamed it on climate change.
The Director-General of NEMA, Mr. Mustapha Mohammed, said at the Experts Technical Meeting in Abuja on 2023 Climate Related Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation Services that the agency has learnt lessons from the disaster of 2022 and has sent warning messages out.
“We will bombard every citizen, state and local government with this information, as we want them to know that it is serious,” Mohammed said as he also warned those living around water channels and flood plains to take precautions.
The Director General of NIHSA, Mr. Clement Eze, said 178 local government areas, 32 states and the FCT would be affected in the forecast given on flooding this year. “This time, we came out early with this prediction and we expect that relevant actors, governments and individuals will go to work. We expect that actions should be taken at the sub-national levels early enough to mitigate the impact,” he said.
Addressing the Senate during budget defence in November last year, the DG of NEMA urged the senate to prevail on states to set up SEMA and local emergency committee and fund them adequately. Ahmed said the Federal Government had distributed 12,000 tonnes of grains to the 36 states, advising that state governments needed to do more in disaster management.
The Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) had requested the sum of N100 billion to repair rods damaged by flooding last year. The MD of FERMA, Mr. Nurudeen Rafindadi, made the request while defending the agency’s budget proposal before the Senate.
