Averting another flooding
At least five persons lost their lives and several others injured, including a Catholic priest, in Jalingo, Taraba state recently when a heavy downpour brought down many houses and destroyed farmlands. Just like in Delta and Lagos states, flooding in Katsina also claimed six lives, injured five and destroyed over 580 houses. Last year’s flooding in Suleja, Niger State where up to eighteen people lost their lives in a flood that ravaged four communities after a heavy downpour is still fresh in our memories.
The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) has now issued a warning about potential flood disasters in parts of the country, with flood prone states like Ekiti, Osun, Akwa Ibom, Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Ebonyi, Enugu, Abia, Oyo, Lagos, Plateau, Sokoto, Edo and Bayelsa facing a looming threat. The Agency announced that 380 local government areas in 35 states would experience flooding this year, which it said will be high in about 78 LGAs. It however said the situation will generally not be as severe as what the country experienced in 2012.
NIHSA’s Acting Director-General Olayinka Ogunwale said the government had been issuing warnings to residents in flood-prone areas to relocate from such locations. The resultant consequences of flooding are no longer news to Nigeria; the devastation and impact is becoming more glaring and evident every rainy season. But despite the recurrence of this natural disaster, no serious action has been taken at any level of government to effectively protect the citizens who are ill-equipped to face the recurrent disaster.
Flood and its impacts only come to the fore when disaster occurs, then the authorities and the victims run helter-skelter to seek solution. Initiation of impromptu and fire brigade approach as remedy is often done but nothing again would be heard until another flooding season. Flood disaster are often attributed to “heavy rainfall” but heavy rainfall need not wash away houses, property and lives if the right thing was done in the first place. Lack of or shoddy city planning and sometimes incompetence on the part of governments is the major culprit. Indiscriminate infrastructure construction without adherence to urban and regional master plans is the order of the day in most of our cities while structures are built along floodwater channels.
In the face of global climate change, governments should recognize flooding as a real-time problem. There should also be successful implementation of programmes and policies that will reduce the impact of all forms of activities that threaten our environment. The Ecological Fund, which is ample,should effectively used to mitigate ecological problems and protect the citizenry from floods and all environmental challenges. Instead, these funds are seen at all tiers of government as slush funds to be abused for political and personal ends.
We therefore must put in place measures to manage high water flows from rivers and to contain flooding across the country and governments have adopted measures such as flood mapping, flood vulnerability studies and flood sensitisation and awareness campaigns. Though Flooding is an emergency, it is the National Emergency Management Agency’s (NEMA) task alone to respond to it. . Adequate warning is necessary before we are exposed to the forces of nature and resort to desilting considering the amount of mud and garbage that flood water brings.
It becomes incumbent on the authorities to, apart from annual budget provision, to ensure that the master plans of areas are strictly adhered to as a priority issue for easy solution to possible environmental problems because lives, as well as property, are at risk. The early warning sign by NIHSA is a pointer to what lies ahead. Therefore as pressure of urban development mounts over the fragile environment, action ought to have been taken earlier to reduce the damage flood can do. The warning should serve as inspiration enough for our cities to rise up to the situation before we wake up to another round of flood disaster.
Typically, it takes 3-4 years to complete an engineering bachelor degree in Europe and USA, ours typically lasts for 5 years, but that does not make our graduates more productive. For the right or wrong reasons, many people are increasingly demanding that we should reduce the length of our engineering degree programs since the longer period has not made our graduates any better. What are we doing wrong?