Flood Jitters: Residents defy warning as Lagos, Edo, Delta, Anambra, Kaduna, others struggle to avert disaster

By Our Reporters

With the highest of the rainy play approaching, Nigeria is erstwhile again staring astatine the grim imaginable of

devastating floods that could displace millions, destruct farmlands, and disrupt socio-economic activities. The Federal Government, done the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) and the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA), has repeatedly issued warnings, listing dozens of states and section authorities areas arsenic high-risk.

The merchandise of excess h2o from Cameroon’s Lagdo Dam, combined with persistent rainfall, has further heightened fears of a looming nationalist disaster.

Flooding is nary alien to Nigerians. The 2012 , 2022 and 2023, flood disasters near unforgettable scars, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, destroying livelihoods, and causing avoidable deaths. Despite lessons from those tragedies, the rhythm of devastation appears acceptable to repetition arsenic galore residents of susceptible communities proceed to defy evacuation orders, citing poverty, deficiency of alternatives, and fearfulness of losing their spot to thieves.

From Sokoto to Bayelsa, Kogi to Anambra, the communicative is the same: governments hole connected insubstantial and done exigency agencies, yet citizens successful harm’s mode stay unmoved. While immoderate authorities governments person allocated billions for flood prevention, cleared drainages, and acceptable up Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, the reluctance of residents to relocate to safer grounds threatens to undermine these efforts.

Short word measures specified arsenic dredging rivers, desilting drainages, and sensitisation campaigns cannot by themselves forestall disasters, but that is what’s obtainable crossed the states.

Findings by Sunday Vanguard crossed the state revealed that portion efforts are so being made by authorities governments to incorporate the impending floods, astir residents successful susceptible areas are ignoring the warnings to relocate. This unsafe defiance, experts warn, whitethorn crook aboriginal warnings into different circular of “we told you so” erstwhile the waters yet rise.

AKWA IBOM: Vulnerable communities

Like past year, Akwa Ibom State authorities is caught talking and readying connected insubstantial arsenic floods ravage residents, contempt national government’s aboriginal warnings to susceptible states.

In January, the State House of Assembly urged the Ministry of Environment to follow preventive flood strategies and tasked the Waste Protection and Management Agency (AKSEPMA) to wide drainages and equine consciousness campaigns.

Member representing Etim Ekpo/Ika, Mfon Idung, lamented that floods “continue to assertion lives and spot of residents, casting a shadiness implicit socio-economic prospects of the state,” adjacent arsenic helium acknowledged Governor Umo Eno’s involution with the 0.9km underground outfall drain successful Uyo and Itu LGAs.

That aforesaid month, Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Prof. Joseph Utsev, visited Governor Eno, seeking collaboration connected sanitation and flood control. He cited the Itu Irrigation Project arsenic a large inaugural to enactment year-round farming and flood mitigation.

In May, with Akwa Ibom listed among states projected to acquisition terrible flooding, Governor Eno warned residents against indiscriminate discarded disposal, urging communities to cleanable drainages. He directed Ibom Community Watch to cheque dumping into waterways and assured alleviation enactment for victims.

Despite repeated pledges, dense July rains submerged ample parts of Uyo and Itu LGAs. Roads, homes, and adjacent the Idongesit Nkanga Secretariat went under. Around Itam and Urua Ekpa, residents fled waist-deep waters, portion commercialized transport collapsed.

Resident Effiong Bassey said, “The rainwater has been redirected into homes due to the fact that of ongoing roadworthy construction.” By precocious July, Governor Eno ordered Works Commissioner, Prof. Eno Ibanga, and contractor Hensek’s Uwem Okoko to draught a power plan. But galore lament government’s reactive approach.

BENUE: Govt appeals, residents hesitant

With River Benue rising steadily, communities successful Makurdi and surrounding LGAs are unsettled. NiHSA again listed Benue among the states astir susceptible to flooding.

Areas similar Achussa, Wadata Rice, Gyado Villa, Wurukum, and Idye usually spell nether water. Beyond Makurdi, LGAs including A...