Scores of Nigerians have died in floods between June and August. The Federal Government has been reacting to the disaster with condolence statements, palliatives and wasted ecological funding.

On Monday Manzo Ezekiel, the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) spokesperson, said that Nigeria’s flooding death toll had reached up to 49 after the northeast was ravaged by a heavy flood. States such as Jigawa, Adamawa and Taraba have been the most affected areas.

Ezekiel also said that the heavy showers have displaced thousands more in its wake.

What’s more? NEMA has braced Nigerians for the worst, as it warned that the August rains by no means measure on the same level as the coming September-October downpours.

“We are just entering into the peak of the season, particularly in the northern part of the country and the situation is very dire,” Ezekiel warned.

Taking a cue from this, FIJ spotlights cases of flooding in the past three months, while accessing it side-by-side with ecological measures governmental stakeholders have taken to mitigate this current reality.

‘SHOWERS’… NOT OF BLESSINGS

Due to the unavailability of comprehensive data from government databases, FIJ garnered reports of flooding from various news reports.

In these random reports between June and August, statistics show that flooding alone caused 37 deaths, 20 demolished houses, three days of grounded movements. This affected no less than 9,696 households and 11,500 farmlands in those months.

EXISTENT SOCIAL INTERVENTIONS ARE NOT MITIGATING FLOODING

In reaction to most flooding cases, the Nigerian government has consistently carried out two forms of intervention: warning of flood-prone areas of potential flood occurrences on the one hand while providing succour to the victims with palliatives on the other hand.

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There have been little to no infrastructural interventions to uproot the causes of these floods. Interventions by the federal government have mostly involved dispensing relief materials. One such case was the one carried out by NEMA in June where it disbursed relief materials to 2023 Rivers State flood victims in 2024.

However, it is not that the government folds its arms while flooding sweeps people’s lives and their resources. It was for situations like flooding that the Okigbo Commission had in mind for recommending the ecological fund to the Nigerian government in 1981.

FIJ found in a recent report that ecological funds were disbursed from the federation to state government accounts, but most of the monies were misappropriated. The federal government has also failed to supervise the use of its fund which goes unaccounted for.

President Tinubu sent a condolence message to Jigawa residents after flooding took uncounted lives in August. He asked for more implementation of environmental interventions but the same state has millions in unaccounted ecological funds.

Jigawa, despite receiving N734 million from the Federal Government during the first half of 2024, utilised N655 million for environmental protection in the same time frame.

FLOODING EFFECTS BITE BEYOND THOSE DOWNPOURS

While random statistics might have only shown that 11,500 farmlands have been hit by various cases of flooding in three months, the ripple effect of this has serious consequences for food security in Nigeria.

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Apart from the security issues that have displaced farmers from their farmlands and President Bola Tinubu’s fuel subsidy removal strategy in May 2023, flooding has also been a fundamental factor contributing to the food shortages that Nigerians have encountered in the past months.

The food scarcity crisis has left people vulnerable to starvation and malnourishment, a situation that also sponsored the mantra by many participants in the #EndBadGovernance protests in August.

Among the worst hit areas of flooding are Yobe, Kebbi, Kano, Niger, Nasarawa, Taraba, Sokoto, Plateau, Bauchi and Bayelsa; states that are crucial to the food supply chain of the country.

The flooding crisis has, and will continue to set a chain of crises in the coming months. Crises which, mostly, are socio-economic. Flooding will contribute to food shortage, and food shortage will lend a hand to inflation, inflation will in turn reduce the purchasing capacity of the average Nigerian.