Fighting flooding

• Governments should do more to minimise its effects

As the havoc wrought by heavy rainfall continues to take its toll, the warnings of three of Nigeria’s most prominent meteorological and disaster-management agencies demand greater attention than ever before.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) and the National Water Research Institute (NWRI) have all stated that an already-bleak outlook for the next few weeks is likely to be worsened by a toxic combination of inadequate funding and the widespread refusal to adhere to environmental laws.

In June, NIHSA predicted that 74 local government areas in 30 states would experience severe flooding between June and September as a result of the overflow of water from the Niger and Benue rivers. Other causative factors are climate change, the clogging of drains by refuse and indiscriminate construction on flood plains and natural water channels.

NEMA’s Director-General, Alhaji Mustapha Maihaja, and his NWRI counterpart, Dr Emmanuel Adani, urged governments to urgently provide more funds to enable the country’s dams to effectively channel floodwater.

The consequences of failing to heed these and previous warnings have been devastating. In 2018, heavy rainfall caused the Niger and Benue rivers to burst their banks, resulting in floods which affected 34 of the nation’s 36 states. It caused an estimated 141 deaths, 265 injuries and displaced thousands of citizens. Lagos State experienced severe flooding in May, this year. On August 10, an estimated 300 houses were destroyed by floods in Ngalda, Yobe State.

These are losses whose negative impact could be substantially reduced if governments at the federal, state and local government levels took more decisive pre-emptive action. The most important measures must ensure strict adherence to town-planning and environmental laws.

Nigeria can no longer afford to tolerate a situation in which illegal structures are built on flood plains and water channels in clear defiance of both law and common sense. Far too many of the country’s urban areas are characterised by the erection of structures which block the natural flow of water after rainfall and help to worsen the negative impact of flooding.

State governments in particular must move decisively against such blatantly criminal acts. Water channels and flood plains must be clearly demarcated and closely monitored. All illegal structures must be pulled down and new ones must not be allowed to start. Town-planning officials who collude with builders to perpetrate the practice should be identified and sanctioned.

Similar vigilance should be applied to the enforcement of anti-littering edicts. The dumping of refuse into drains has long been acknowledged to be one of the main causes of flooding in the country’s towns and cities, but with the possible exception of Lagos, not enough concerted action has been taken to deal with the problem. Periodic sanitation exercises are clearly inadequate; they do not cope with the huge amounts of waste generated daily.

A comprehensive ban should be placed on the dumping of trash in major drains. Traders and shop-owners should be made to bear the responsibility for the cleanliness of the drains in their vicinity during business hours, while local governments take over the task of monitoring at night. More effort must be invested in creating the attitudinal changes that are vital to solving the problem.

Governments must also devote greater portions of their budgets to preventing and reducing flooding. The funds so realised should help to ensure that dams, water channels and drains are well-built and properly maintained so that they work effectively during the rainy season.

Climate change, population growth and urbanisation will continue to affect the extent and seriousness of flooding. Nigeria would do well to ensure that it enhances its ability to prevent, anticipate and minimise the negative effects on the lives of its citizens.