Nigeria’s annual flooding has become a predictable disaster, destroying lives, displacing millions, and stalling development.
NIJ MARTIN FOR RIFNOTE
The images have become tragically familiar – families wading through chest-high water, collapsed bridges cutting off entire communities, farmers watching helplessly as their crops vanish under swirling brown waters. Year after year, Nigeria’s flooding disasters follow the same script, with only the death toll and damage figures changing. As I write this, over 2.5 million of my fellow Nigerians need humanitarian assistance due to this year’s floods, 60% of them children at risk of waterborne diseases and malnutrition.
What makes this endless cycle of destruction so frustrating is that we know exactly why it keeps happening. While climate change has intensified rainfall patterns, the truth is our flooding crisis is largely man-made. Poor urban planning, nonexistent drainage systems, corrupt land allocation practices, and uncoordinated dam releases have turned what should be manageable seasonal rains into annual catastrophes.
Take Mokwa in Niger State, where 500 people perished in May’s floods. The disaster wasn’t just caused by heavy rains, but by the collapse of infrastructure that shouldn’t have failed. Across the country, we see the same pattern – natural waterways blocked by illegal constructions approved by bribed officials, cities built without proper drainage, and emergency warnings that either come too late or never reach those most at risk.
The solutions aren’t rocket science. Cities like Amsterdam have shown how proper planning and water management can keep flood-prone areas safe. We need to stop treating floods as unavoidable acts of God and start addressing the human failures that turn heavy rains into humanitarian disasters.
First, we must enforce existing urban planning laws and stop the madness of building in floodplains. Those concrete estates springing up where rivers once flowed aren’t signs of progress – they’re disaster zones waiting to happen. Second, we need to invest in proper drainage systems that can handle increasing rainfall instead of the patchwork solutions we keep recycling. Third, our disaster warning systems need complete overhaul – what good are NIMET’s predictions if the woman farming in Bayelsa never hears them?
Perhaps most importantly, we need to hold someone accountable when preventable flooding disasters occur. The officials who approve illegal constructions, the contractors who build substandard drainage, the dam operators who release water without warning – they must answer for their negligence.
As the rains continue and more communities brace for impact, I can’t help but wonder: when will we finally learn? How many more children need to drown, how many more farms need to be wiped out before we treat flooding like the preventable crisis it is? The technology and knowledge to solve this exist. What’s missing is the political will to make it happen.
Our grandparents used to say “when you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, know that something is chasing it.” Nigeria’s worsening floods are nature’s way of telling us we’ve messed with the balance for too long. The question is – are we finally ready to listen?
The next time you see a news report about another “unprecedented” flood, remember: there’s nothing unprecedented about disasters we choose not to prevent. Until we address the root causes, we’ll keep counting bodies instead of solutions. And frankly, we’re better than that – or at least, we should be.