Making Disaster Management Work

Thankfully, the 2022 flood disaster that ravaged 24 states of Nigeria, leaving in its wake hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of people homeless with destroyed livelihoods, is receding, restoring hope of resettlement for those that survived it. But, the disaster and the inept manner in which it was managed have left a lot of questions and lessons for Nigeria. A lot of those lives, homes and programmes that were lost because of the disaster, could have been saved if officials and agencies responsible for managing disaster put in mitigating processes and actions in place at the right time.
It is tragic that the disaster, whose devastating effects were predicted as far back as February 2022, nine to ten months before it struck, eventually came and wreaked havoc of monumental proportions. Ordinarily, heads should roll in departments that are responsible for disaster management for not doing enough to respond to the predictions.
From the accuracy with which NIMET predicted the disaster, it clear that Nigeria is beginning to have reliable institutions that can do their jobs. Credit must be given to the agency for this good job it has consistently done in the country in the past few years. If well utilized, NIMET climatic predictions will not only help to prevent catastrophic consequences of the predictions, people who depend on climatic conditions like farmers will find them very helpful.
But it is not enough to have accurate predictions and yet do nothing to respond or take the benefits that they offer. That is the reason why over the years, agencies, institutions and collaborations have been established with laws backing them to respond to and take leadership in disaster management. The Act establishing the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), for instance provided for the establishment of state and local government counterparts of the agency, to build collaboration and reporting lines on disaster management. Many states, and indeed virtually all the local governments do not have their emergency management agencies in place.
Disaster management should begin to occupy centre stage in national discourse. Not long ago in Port Harcourt, there was a stampede in which dozens of people were killed. It left a sour taste in the mouth that many of those that died could have been saved if ordinary rules of crowd management were adopted.
Apart from forming a regular curriculum for schools, greater awareness needs to be formed about how to respond to disasters and emergencies. The presence of emergency organisations like the fire service should be increased and funded. Events organisers should be made to employ the services of emergency agencies and experts in managing situations that could lead to disasters. There should be better awareness campaigns in communities where flooding has become perennial to enlighten them on what to do when faced with emergencies. Such awareness should include knowing who to contact in situations of emergency and making available hotlines for people to use.
Government should also build and fund health institutions and redesign public buildings to allow them take in temporarily displaced people when such disasters occur.
Finally, it is clear that everyone knows what exacerbated the 2022 floods: the release of water from Lagdo Dam in Cameroun and greater rainfall associated with climate change. The need to build a dam to take in water from the Camerounian dam had been there since the 1980s but, nothing was done. Since 2012, it has become clear that to save Nigeria the calamity of this periodic disaster, this dam needs to be built. Let us get to work while the flood is still at the ankle.