There is the likelihood that the Niger River got straightened along its spine and tributaries to make room for houses and livable acreage. When nature fights back, flood becomes the shibboleth of horror across areas submerged. Yet, it is hardly “flooding” as Toni Morrison would say, it is “remembering.” It’s the water simply “remembering where it used to be.”
Let’s assume, on the flipside, that the case in Tiffin Maza was remarkably different; that its land tract was never underbed to a rippling river. Let’s assume that the tragic flood that overran the once vibrant agrarian township, tucked in the heart of Mokwa, Niger State, was triggered by human infestation of nature’s waterway, does it justify the devastation wrought by the May 28 – 29 downpour?
Not by a smidgen, I’d say, irrespective of the Federal Government’s claims otherwise. The government’s attempt to assign blame was
telling. The Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Prof. Joseph Utsev, denied allegations that the Kainji and Jebba dams’ discharge caused the flood, attributing it instead to “torrential rainfall, climate change, and blocked waterways.”
Unregulated building activities and encroachments, he said, blocked a seasonal tributary of River Dingi, which normally remained dry except during periods of heavy rainfall. The absence of efficient alternative drainage channels also worsened the situation, he claimed.
What has been omitted, whether deliberately or negligently, is that just weeks earlier, in April, the Jebba dam released water, flooding farmlands and killing 13 people. There had been warning signs, yet no precautions were taken. There was no coordinated evacuation plan. No community-level awareness drive and pre-flooding simulation. Just the same bureaucratic shrug that always follows a Nigerian tragedy: “We regret the loss. We will investigate.”
Such devil-may-care attitude neither assuages the bereaved nor corrects the faultlines that triggered the disaster. And Mokwa, still reeling from the devastation of the May flood, can only wait with bated breath for the next deadly wave of flash flood.
Ask the beleaguered residents of Tiffin Maza. Between the dirt paws of the Mokwa, Niger State township, a persistent draft of misery leapfrogs across the ruins, as if to reenact the tragedy caused by the heavy rainfall that started on the night of May 28, resulted in the deadly deluge of May 29. By the time the water reached Madarasatul Tarbiyyatul Islamiyya, a Quranic school hosting about 870 almajiri boys in Tiffin Maza and the mosque opposite it, it was no longer a river but a maw. A cold, muscular predator that peeled boys from sleep like overripe fruit and flung them into its mouth.
AbdulMalik, 15, from Sokoto, screamed his mother’s name until the flood washed it from his tongue. Abba, also 15, from Sokoto, thrashed in the dark until his frail limbs stilled. Lawwali, 16, from Niger, equally got swept away, vanishing beneath the serpentine tide. Salamanu, 18, from Niger, had barely opened his eyes when the water closed its mouth around him. Muhammadu, 20, from Niger, equally drowned. The harder he fought, the deeper he sank. The sixth boy, unnamed, was found with a body battered beyond identity, yet no less mourned.
They were almajirai, mostly underage boys, but the water devoured them and swept them away in its tide. More than 500 homes were destroyed. Some 121 were injured. More than 3,000 individuals, were displaced in the flood that impacted over 9,000 people in total, according to the Director of Information, Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Dr. Ibrahim Audu Hussaini. Hussaini.
But beyond the scale of the Mokwa disaster lies the scandal of who died. Not just how many. The almajirai, a floating population of underage boys subjected to religious training, are among Nigeria’s most systemically neglected citizens. They rarely feature in demographic data and public safety planning. They are educated without infrastructure, sheltered without walls and raised without parental care. Thus, their vulnerability when disaster strikes—be it fire, flood, or famine.
The reasons for their vulnerability are manifold but not mysterious. Almajiri children live in open, low-lying, and often unsanitary spaces: mosque courtyards, abandoned buildings, under market stalls, and bridges. They often lack any form of early-warning safety nets.
Sources living close to the Madarasatul Tarbiyyatul Islamiyya, the Quranic school in Tiffin Maza, claimed that about 120 pupils died in the flood, but the school’s proprietor, Mallam Hassan Alhaji Umar, claimed that only 48 almajirai were missing, of which six have been certified dead.
A 2024 study conducted across Kano and Kaduna found that three out of every six almajiri boys die before adulthood, exposed to hunger, violence, disease, and now, environmental disaster. The study concluded that for every six almajirai, three die, two get lost, and only one survives to adulthood. These numbers depict our national shame in flesh.
At the heart of the Mokwa calamity lies a double failure: of infrastructure and imagination. The first is concrete: bridges not maintained, dams poorly managed, and urban planning left to guesswork. The second is cultural: a failure to imagine children like the almajirai as deserving of the same dignity, safety, and future as any other child.
The flood exposed both failures. The town’s arterial bridge collapsed. Emergency workers were cut off, and recovery was delayed. An excavator had to be brought in to retrieve bodies from the wreckage. And when, days later, the authorities declared rescue efforts suspended, their words were chilling in their finality: “There is no one left to find.”
But perhaps the greater tragedy is that most Nigerians have accepted and moved on, while bracing for the next catastrophe. In a country where disaster is regularised, death becomes ambient. Nigeria has learned to tuck children into unmarked graves while ignoring their names. This is scary.
The Mokwa flood is not merely an act of God but the culmination of decades of state failure, misgovernance, and strategic neglect.
To prevent future tragedies, Nigeria must radically rethink its approach to disaster preparedness and the structural neglect of vulnerable populations, like almajirai. The almajiri system requires a complete overhaul driven by a proprietor-government partnership. All almajiri schools should be registered, and the pupils must be provided with proper shelter, healthcare, and psychosocial support.
Equally urgent is the need for climate-resilient infrastructure. Flood-prone states like Niger must invest in embankments, efficient drainage systems, and elevated housing designs built with the realities of a changing climate in mind. Disaster preparedness should begin at the grassroots and involve both secular and non-secular schools. Community-based early warning systems, whether through SMS alerts, local radio broadcasts, or traditional town criers, can offer lifesaving seconds of notice and foster a generation capable of responding more intelligently to emergencies.
We cannot respond to crises effectively if we do not know who lives where. Every almajiri school and informal community must be mapped and integrated into a digitised database and national emergency frameworks.
The government must also must also account for poor urban planning decisions: settlements allowed in floodplains, blocked drainages left unchecked, and warnings ignored. Only through such coordinated, humane, and forward-looking action can the memory of those drowned in Mokwa, especially the unseen almajirai, be honoured beyond lip service.
After the flood, there were no marble tombstones or state funerals in their wake. Just quick burials in shallow, anonymous graves. Nigeria has already forgotten them. But their memory lingers in a sandal half-buried in mud. In a slate smudged with rain. In the eyes of those who scurried from death that they might collapse into life.
