It has become a ritual that, close to the rainy season, the federal government, through respective authorities, usually issues alerts warning state governments and residents about impending floods in vulnerable areas.
These alerts and predictions aim to prompt appropriate proactive measures to mitigate the menace of this human-induced and natural form of disaster bedeviling our environments. During the 2024 Annual Flood Outlook, the Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) predicted that 31 states with 148 local government areas (LGAs) are within high flood risk areas.
Additionally, 35 states, including the FCT, with 249 LGAs, are considered to fall within moderate flood risk areas. The remaining 377 LGAs are forecasted for low flood risk areas. The Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NiMet) and the NIHSA predicted that floods in high-risk areas will occur between April and November.
Addressing stakeholders at the National Emergency Coordination Forum (ECF) meeting in May on the need for proactive measures against the predicted 2024 flood disaster, the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Zubaida Umar, highlighted the importance of early warning backed by early action to mitigate the impact of disasters.
Notwithstanding, Nigeria has faced the recurring challenge of flooding, particularly during the rainy season. The impact of these floods has been devastating, affecting lives, properties, and the economy. The most devastating of all these floods was in 2012, when countless lives were lost and many properties were destroyed.
Flooding in Nigeria is a multifaceted issue, driven by both natural and human-induced factors. The primary natural cause is heavy rainfall, which overwhelms the drainage systems in many urban areas.
Human activities exacerbate these natural causes. Urbanisation, with inadequate planning and poor drainage systems, contribute significantly to the problem. Many cities have outdated or poorly maintained drainage systems, which are often clogged with waste, preventing the efficient flow of water.
Deforestation and land degradation also play crucial roles, reducing the land’s ability to absorb water, leading to surface runoff that causes floods. In response to these threats, NEMA has been implementing a comprehensive strategy to mitigate the impact of floods.
A key component of this strategy is the enhancement of early warning systems. NEMA leverages advanced technologies and real-time data to provide timely alerts to vulnerable communities. This allows for better preparation and quicker response times, potentially saving lives and reducing damage.
Before the beginning of every rainy season, NEMA always intensifies its community sensitisation campaigns. These campaigns aim to educate residents in flood-prone areas about the risks and preventive measures they can take.
Emphasising the importance of maintaining clear drainage systems and proper waste disposal, these programmes foster a culture of preparedness and community responsibility. The involvement of local leaders and stakeholders is crucial in ensuring that these messages reach a broad audience. Addressing the issue of flooding requires a collaborative approach.
Meanwhile, reducing the occurrence of floods also involves improving urban drainage infrastructure. NEMA advocates for the desilting of drainage systems, the construction of flood barriers, and the incorporation of flood-resistant designs in urban planning.
These measures, combined with strict enforcement of environmental regulations, can significantly reduce the risk of flooding. Adequate funding and political will are essential for the successful implementation of these infrastructure projects. Government policy support is vital for effective flood mitigation.
Abdulhamid Abdullahi Aliyu, a youth corps member with the Centre for Crisis Communication, can be reached via [email protected].
Human grenades in Gwoza
It is difficult to, if ever, appreciate the blood-curdling terror which went into the terrorist attack at Gwoza, Borno State, on June 29,2024, without stripping bare and descending into vast, fathomless depths of depravity into which until now, only a few people have been able to plunge into, and plumb in Nigeria.
Outside the confines of the womb, there is nowhere else a child finds as much comfort as when they are part of a mother’s body. Beyond comfort, joined to a mother’s body by biological necessity, a child leeches the courage to confront the considerable hurdles of life. For in seeing the Herculean task that motherhood is in a world sundered by predatory patriarchy, a child prepares for the worst by coupling together strains of resilience from its mother.
However, at Gwoza, the image of mother as a guarantor of life spectacularly fell apart in the devastating terrorist attack of June 29th,2024. A woman with a baby strapped to her back was said to have detonated a bomb at a crowded motor park in the state. Two other bomb blasts also shook the state on the same day, killing and wounding dozens.
The woman backing a baby and blasting an improvised explosive device (IED) evokes one of the most heartbreaking victim-hoods of conflict and terrorism.
Women have been twice victims of the deadly insurgency that has rippled through northern Nigeria for more than a decade now. Killed, raped, widowed and displaced, women, like in conflicts as old as earth, have been involved as victims and witnesses as they have been forced to give up everything.
As their men have continued to fall in a war of men against men and women and children, women have been kept alive to be repeatedly victimized and as repositories of tales that recall the horrors of war.
For Nigerian women, this insidious initiation into the theater of war comes much earlier, even before the threshold of womanhood is crossed. In 2014, when Boko Haram observed that it was losing ground in the ground and propaganda offensives launched by the Nigerian government, it spectacularly turned the tables by abducting over a hundred girls from a secondary school in Chibok.
Four years later, in 2018, the group repeated the devastating trick on another secondary school in Dapchi,Yobe State. Just that it was not a trick. Some girls from the two attacks are yet to return home or be rescued years later.
Many of those returned or rescued have come back with babies and chilling tales of sexual slavery serving as ruthless initiation into womanhood. Many of the girls became women in the hands of their captors, serving as wives and bearing babies for them.
In the face of such a devastating threat, what is the government doing. Do attempts by the government to de-radicalise and reintegrate terrorists into communities embrace women? Beyond embracing women, do they pay special attention to the needs of women affected by conflict which are more pressing than those of men, but are typically in danger of being subsumed by them in world diseased by its patriarchy and its unwillingness to confront it?
Nigeria is a country sorely in need of comfort, the kind of comfort that can only come from courage-the courage of its leaders to finally and forcefully confront those responsible for the immeasurable suffering of its people, especially those in the rural areas who have suffered incalculably.
Kene Obiezu wrote via [email protected]
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