Aggressive Sensitisation Needed to Navigate Future Floods

Bennett Oghifo

In the past few weeks there have been harrowing incidences of avoidable deaths, loss, and untold damage caused by flooding in the 36 states of Nigeria.

Highways are cut off with children, parents and guardians setting up temporary homes on sections of the highways that are on high ground.

This is the worst flooding event since that of 2012 that claimed several lives and property, and dislocated families across the nation. 

This is certainly the adverse impact of climate change as determined by scientists. Worst hit this year are communities on the path of the Rivers Niger and Benue as they course to the Atlantic Ocean. The source of these important rivers is from Cameroon, where excess water is released from the Lagdo Dam during the rainy season to prevent a burst. The released water bloats both rivers and overflows to drown low-lying communities. 

The 2022 flood, according to the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), is more severe than that of 2012. He challenged every state that is calling for the federal government’s intervention to show what they have done, adding that the states ought to be at the fore of the intervention with the federal government assisting them if necessary.

“When flooding occurs and people are trapped, the question to ask is has the state governments evacuated the victims to safe places and are asking for federal support? They should not expect the federal government to move to flooded areas in the states to remove people, he said. “The state governments know these locations and the people trapped and their cultures. But because we have also carried out our vulnerability assessment we know all these places too.” 

According to him, NEMA visited all the communities they considered vulnerable to flooding to advise them to seek higher grounds when the 2022 rain forecast was released by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET).

“NEMA wrote to the state governments informing them of the danger. And we went a step further by activating all the zonal and territorial offices that they move to the state in their areas of responsibility to remind the people that some of the locations were identified to be at risk. Our team at the zonal offices visited those locations and even talked to the community leaders. I give you an instance of Kogi State, Ganaja area, where we informed the people a week or so before the coming of the flood. Our zonal office went there together with the state officials to warn them that this place is a low area and is likely to be flooded and advise them to move also,” he said.

Also discussing the impact of the 2022 flooding and possible solutions, Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke, the Director of Centre for Climate Change and Development in Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ebony State, Nigeria, said “The flooding has affected nearly 2.5 million people across Nigeria. It has stopped a lot of people from going to farm. It has displaced a huge number of people. 

“I think you can also even put it in context that the entire climate change induced impact or losses in Nigeria has been calculated to be in the region of 100 billion U.S. dollars by 2020 and about $460 billion by 2050. If you take the 2020 figure 100 billion, this is about 15 trillion naira and this is equivalent to about 2% to 11% of Nigerian GDP, depending on how you calculate. The 2050 figure of 460 billion is about six 6 to 9 trillion. Iraq, which is in the region of 6% to 30% of Nigerian GDP. And this figure is actually from the National Adaptation Strategy and Plan of Action of Nigeria.”

He said flooding is one of the major sources of impact of climate change on Nigeria. The population at risk in Nigeria to flooding is about 25 million approximately. In Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, South-south Nigeria, not less than “300,000 or 400,000 people are estimated to be exposed to high flood risk along the Niger/Benue basin, with about 650 kilometres of land susceptible to flooding. Lagos alone, there are about 360,000 people exposed and this number is going to reach about 3.2 million by 2050. The direct estimate of the damage and loss of the 2012 flooding is about $1.48 trillion.

“The total damage and loss, including indirect ones due to the flooding of 2012, which was one of the most devastating floods. And I think what we have this year may actually have surpassed that year, but that was the first major flooding that shocked Nigeria. And I think it was estimated that the damage from that one is about 2.6 trillion or about 16.9 billion USD. Now, the problem is that nobody’s actually calculating this thing in a very clear way. This number that I gave you, I think, was done by the Nigerian government at that time. But I don’t think I have anywhere where I can find the impact, the number, the cost of 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. I think I saw somewhere about 1,500 deaths that were attributed to the loss because of the flooding event of 2020 by the Red Cross, I think 1500. Not quite sure. Then you see that it’s not just floods. Also about sea level rise, about 3400 square kilometres in the coast. Regions of Nigeria are currently inundated, already at about 0.2 metre sea level rise. If you have about 0.5 metre sea level rise scenario, then you’re looking at about 50 million people in the country that may need to be relocated.