Tag: Maiduguri flood

•There is little proof that our governments sufficiently prepare for such tragedies

Nigeria may have been a country locked in a vicious mode of tragedies, yet, the flood which swept through Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State on September 9, cannot but stand out among the many. Aside the number of the dead put

at 30, the no fewer than two million people displaced said to be taking refuge at various camps, should ordinarily stoke alarm.

It would be the third major incident in 32 years – the first being in 1992 and the other in 2012 – linked to the Alau Dam on the Ngadda River in Borno State. The dam, said to be under the management of the Chad Basin Development Authority, was constructed in 1984 to supply water for irrigation and domestic use in Maiduguri while doubling also as a means to control flood in the area.

In the 1992 incident, the dam was said to have reached its maximum level and spilled over, occasioning the flood in the Jere Bowl. In 2012, it was a case of the dam opening its evacuation valve, following heavy torrential rain, and thus the release of massive amounts of water that caused flood in the state capital and surrounding areas.

Whereas some accounts attributed the Tuesday incident to the collapse of the Alau Dam, the Federal Government countered that the flood was actually caused by overflow of the Ngadda River.

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As would be expected of a major tragedy of that scale, it has been an orgy of lamentations and solidarity visits to the governor and the camps of fellow Nigerians sheltered in the IDP camps. Those visits, while in order, actually beg larger questions about whether or not the tragedy could have been averted.

First, it is a well-known fact that the first major incident linked to the dam occurred more than three decades and the next one more than two decades after. Could we in the circumstance then reasonably say that any lessons have been learnt from each preceding tragedy?

Second, our governments at all levels have spoken of the  reality of climate change and the need to have mitigation measures in place; could we say that they have invested sufficiently as they should, in flood abatement measures to minimise the occurrence of such tragedies?

What of new dams to ease the pressure on the existing ones, particularly the question of their integrity, given what we know of the notoriety of our institutions in maintenance and safety? In other words, are those dams being maintained as they should?

Whereas the story today is about Alau Dam and the overflow of the Ngadda River, the same story could be said to be true of other dams across the country. Fact is, the potential for associated tragedy is everywhere across the entire flood plains of the Niger and Benue troughs. After all, Nigerians are only too familiar with the perennially looming overflow of Cameroun’s Lagdo Dam at every successive cycle of rains, and with it the unending nightmares for the inhabitants of the vast Benue trough, right up to Lokoja, the Kogi State capital; same in the Southwest, where Oyan Dam has since constituted a rod of affliction with its perennial destruction and dislocation of communities along its path. In all of these, the common thread is the story of a nation neither truly ready nor equipped for disasters, even when these are in plain sight.

The main point of course is that the usual calls by government on citizens to evacuate their abodes with every cycle of heavy rains are no longer sufficient. To the extent that our dams are neither sufficient nor could the state of their integrity be guaranteed, the Federal Government in particular, has a huge role to play in remedying the situation. We suggest that the government begin with an audit of the dams, with a view to determining their current state. And given what has become the perennial crying need for the government to build receiver dams to relief a number of the existing dams of the burden of excess water, our expectation is for the government to move swiftly in this direction without further delay.