Though flooding is a perennial natural phenomenon in the country, this year’s flood has assumed a crisis situation, causing untold hardship and suffering to residents. According to Nigerian authorities, over 600 people have died and 1.3 million others were displaced by the flood.
The United Nations, on its part, expressed worry over the impact of flooding in Nigeria which has affected the lives of more than 2.8 million men, women and children. UN Spokesman, Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York that “We are gravely concerned that the flooding will worsen the already alarming food insecurity and malnutrition situation in Nigeria. More than 440,000 hectares of farmland have been partially or totally damaged at a time when more than 19 million people across Nigeria are facing severe food insecurity”.
The Spokesman said cereal production would likely decline by 3.4 per cent compared to 2021 due to the flooding, high agriculture production costs and insecurity, according to FAO.
In Bayelsa state, over 300 communities have been submerged by the flood and hundreds of thousands of people internally displaced with some deaths reported as many people resorted to the use of local boats to navigate their way in and out of the impacted areas.
The narrative is the same across Sagbama, Ekeremor, Southern Ijaw, Ogbia, Yenagoa, Nembe and Kolokuma Opokuma Local Government Areas where businesses have been shut, property lost and farmlands destroyed.
Critical infrastructure like hospitals, roads, bridges and schools, including the state-owned Niger Delta University, Amassoma, the University of Africa, Toru-Orua and the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, Okolobiri, were not spared with the latter temporarily shut down after discharging some of its patients and others transferred to Koki Diette Memorial Hospital in Yenagoa, the state capital.
Also, some portions of the strategic East-West Road, the sole access to and from the state, between Ughelli and Patani in Delta State as well as Okogbe and Ahoada in Rivers State have collapsed with a high volume of flood water occupying the stretch thereby cutting the state off from the rest of the country.
Schools have since been shut down across the state while civil servants were given a week break from work in the wake of the devastating flood, which has caused sharp rise in the price of food stuff and other commodities such as premium motor spirit (PMS) being sold at N800 per litre in the black market. Most of the filling stations, it was learned, have run out of stock and could not get supply due to the state isolation from the rest of the country caused by the terrible state of East-West road.
Victims lament
Lamenting the sad turn of event, Tayese Mike, a resident of Azikoro community in Yenagoa council area, close to the cemetery where three floating corpses were recently retrieved and reburied but now taking refuge with his family at the NUJ Secretariat complex, Ekeki said: “The situation at the state cemetery is very appalling and with the floating corpses a week ago due to heavy down pour and the ravaging flood that has submerged the cemetery, the residents are at the risk of an epidemic.
“I have to move my family out of the environment to avoid health hazards due to the odour oozing out of the place and the flood water that has taken over the entire area coupled with the problem of contending with snakes in search of dry land. We want government as a matter of urgency, to fumigate the entire environment and also relocate the cemetery to an isolated area far from the city centre.”
But allaying the fears of the residents on the possible health hazard from the submerged cemetery, the state commissioner for environment and chairman, the Bayelsa taskforce on the flood, Mr Iselema Gbaranbiri, confirmed that the three floating corpses were recovered and reburied while the environment has been properly fumigated
Also speaking on her ordeal, Ms Peretu, another resident said: “I’m from Ekeremor Local Government Area but residing here in Azikoro. I had to move to the Internally Displaced Persons, IDP camp at the Ox-bow Lake Pavilion since I was displaced some days ago and had nowhere to go.
“Already, I have lost everything in my apartment because I could not take anything, not even a pin because of the sudden rise of the water level within hours. Even here in the IDP camp, where we’re about 75 persons including old women, we have not been well catered for and it is frustrating and depressing.
For Mr ThankGod Perekeme, a father of seven, who was forced out of his home by the rampaging flood, he said: “It has been a trying moment for us. This is the worst flood I have witnessed in the history of Bayelsa. I have been living by the roadside with my family for the past nine days now and we don’t really know when the water will recede to enable us to return home. Things are expensive as we speak and there is no cash backup to purchase needed items. We are really suffering.”
A resident of Edepie, one of the heavily impacted areas in the state capital, Tife Owolabi, a journalist, while narrating his ordeal told Saturday Vanguard, “If I begin to count my losses in this ravaging flood, you will pity me. My car is stuck in a flooded mechanic shed. Also, I lost a drone valued at N800,000 when I fell into the water trying to salvage some of my belongings. My entire house is taken over and my family are now refugees. The psychological effect is more devastating than the physical effects. On Tuesday, I was overwhelmed and my emotion took the better of me as I broke down into tears in the morning seeing the pain and inconveniences my family is going through. But I still give thanks. Hope is a lifter if there is life.”
Another victim, Pere-ere John, a resident of Agudama, said: “we are a family of six, me, my husband and four kids. Presently we’ve been taking refuge in an IDP camp for weeks now without any form of help or assistance. As of yesterday when I called my neighbour, they told me that the flood has got to the window level of my house and invariably my TV set, washing machine, clothes, in fact, everything is gone because that is where I hang them.”
70y-yr-old Madam Dorathy, said: “The flood sacked me and my four grandchildren from my house, look at me as old as I am. I managed to carry the youngest of my grandchild on my shoulders, if not I would have lost him. We left in the night since we had nowhere to go; we had to come to the IDP camp here. I lost everything, we couldn’t salvage anything, not even clothes; I could only carry my handbag and fled with my grandchildren.”
Responding to the crisis situation, the Nigerian Navy Ship, NNS Soroh, Saturday Vanguard learnt, has since been deployed with personnel, trucks and boats to ferry stranded travellers across the impacted sections of the East-West road.
A relieved traveller from Port Harcourt to Yenagoa, Eseimukumo Abel said he could have been stranded at the Okogbe end of the East-West road but for the presence of naval personnel assisting travellers on the route. We are grateful to the Navy for their sense of national duty. But for them, it could have been hell for us. They deployed boats and trucks to get stranded commuters across the flooded stretch of the road,” he said.
Also, Governor Douye Diri, who recently commenced an on-the-spot assessment of the troubled state alongside some top government functionaries using a chopper, described the flood situation as overwhelming. “We have a humanitarian crisis. Economic hardship has set in, as food, medical provisions and energy are now in short supply. The situation is desperate and getting worse,” he lamented and solicited the assistance of the federal government and other donor agencies.
However, the state government has set up a special task force on flood mitigation and management to liaise with the state emergency management agency which has since established IDP camps for the flood victims.
Diri, after separate meetings with the state chapter of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and the Petroleum Owners Association Of Nigeria (PETROAN), and market union leaders, on Tuesday, announced the setting up of two committees comprising government officials, marketers and traders respectively. He said the meetings were convened to address the arbitrary increase in the price of petroleum products and goods in the state and cautioned against plunging the state into another crisis while it is grappling with the flooding challenges.
24 persons die, 134,797 were displaced in Benue
In Benue state, the sudden surge in the water level of River Benue has left the state grappling with a huge humanitarian crisis. The disaster has claimed 24 lives while 127 communities have already been sacked and 134,797 displaced and living in Internally Displaced Person, IDPs, camps and makeshift coverings.
While residents in the affected communities are battling to rescue their families and valuables from the fast-rising water, no tangible respite seems to have come their way as the already overwhelmed state government’s intervention is a far cry from the quantum of relief materials needed by the victims.
The state government through the Executive Secretary of the Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, Dr. Emmanuel Shior had recently acknowledged that it was already overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster.
Dr. Shior in a detailed report of the situation in the state disclosed that “the flood has sacked a total of 134,797 persons from their homes while 18,349 households were affected in the disaster. 127 communities in 12 LGAs including Agatu, Apa, Tarka, Gboko, Gwer West, Logo, Guma, Vandeikya, Otukpo, Buruku, Katsina-Ala and Makurdi have been affected by the flood while 1,818 houses were either lost or submerged in the affected LGAs with 20,468 hectares of farmland washed away.”
Communities threatened by the fast-rising water in Makurdi include Kucha Utebe community, Gyado Villa community, part of Benue State University Teaching Hospital, BSUTH, the Wurukum Abattoira, commercial motor park and Timber Market as well as the Angwan Jukun and Wadata areas among others.
Residents recount ordeals
Some of the victims who have been making frantic efforts to rescue their property from the fast-rising water recounted their ordeals and appealed to the Federal Government to save the state from completely going underwater by dredging River Benue without further delay.
One of the affected victims, Samuel Anemba said “the flood which came unexpectedly, started bit by bit and we thought it was due to the rain. But the level kept rising until my family house got submerged. Luckily we were all around to move most of our belongings out of the house. However several of the household items that we could not remove on time got submerged.
“The entire incident is shocking, we are devastated because nobody expected this. The water level is rising fast and increasing by the minute. This is a similar experience we had in 2012. We heard that the Cameroonian authorities released water from the Lagdo dam just like what happened in 2012. Though after that year’s disaster, the Federal Government was expected to dredge the river it was all promises and no action. We are all traumatised because we have nowhere to go as I speak with you. I am appealing to the Federal Government to come to our aid because the level of devastation is beyond us.”
On his part, Pastor Obi Kelechukwu said, “I have been living here for two years now and this is the first time I am seeing this unimaginable devastation. We started noticing the sudden rise in the water levels of the river some weeks ago but we thought it would go down as the rains subside because during the rainy season the water rises after which it goes down. In this instance, it started coming little by little and people relaxed thinking that it will stop until days ago when it became serious. You can see that people are still parking and running away from their houses because up till this moment the water level is steadily increasing and no doubt more houses will go underwater.
But we are hoping for God’s intervention because the situation is not good at all given the economic situation.
“We are appealing to the Federal and State Governments to come to our aid. We are also calling on public-spirited organisations and individuals to come to our aid because aside from being displaced many of us have lost our property and we are helpless. Most of us do not even know what to do and where to go to. Something has to be done urgently. Also, the Federal Government must take steps to commence the dredging of River Benue because we wouldn’t have gotten to this point if the river had been dredged. If that is not done this disaster will still reoccur and people will always suffer this same fate.”
Also, Mr Glory Ahungway who claimed he had lived in the Kicha Utebe community for over 30 years said, “we have been living here since 1990. Today we just woke up and saw that water has entered our residence and there was water all over. It is shocking and we are looking for where we will move our belongings to and even when night falls where we can lay our heads. This is what you get when you have a government that does not care about its citizen because for several years there have been calls to have River Benue dredged so that it would be able to contain this excess water but they refused to do it. The river is very shallow and filled with sand and when it rains for a few days Makurdi becomes flooded.
“Now we have a serious situation on our hands. We heard that excess water is being released from the Lagdo dam in Cameroon, what that means is that we will be displaced from our homes for some weeks until the water rescinds. Though as I speak I have lost several of my valuables, we have been able to recover some from the water but we are devastated and in need of help. You can see that people are fleeing from their homes in their numbers and so many of the people you see fleeing have children which makes it even worrisome.”
On his part, Greg Eze, an employee of a noddle producing firm who said he was recently transferred to Makurdi from Enugu could not hide his pain. He said, “I am just a month old in Makurdi, I have not stayed up to 30 days in this house. I travelled on Saturday to see my family in Enugu only to return now to come and rest and I saw this ocean. It has destroyed people’s valuables and my property has all been submerged.
I just don’t know what to do because I am new in this town and I don’t know who to run to. Where do I take my property to? I am confused because I had no idea that this kind of disaster occurs here. All my property is inside the water.
Thank God one was not inside when this happened. What if there were naked electricity wires in the flooded houses, lives would have been lost.
“The question on the lips of everyone is why has this river not been dredged? Why allow this disaster to occur repeatedly when dredging the river could help mitigate the impact of the water that is being released from the Cameroonian dam as being speculated as the reason for this flood.”
Meanwhile, the state government has been distributing relief materials to the victims through a community base approach. The government adopted the approach following the lack of facilities to accommodate the displaced persons given the already existing over two million IDPs who were sacked from their communities by armed herdsmen.
“That is why we cannot accommodate the flood victims in a camp, but we are taking relief materials to the victim’s communities. But despite our efforts, the victims are in dire need of assistance because we are already overwhelmed,” Dr. Shior said. He also appealed to the Federal Government, local and international humanitarian organizations to come to the aid of the state.
Flood disaster in Nigeria deeply saddening — King Charles III
Meanwhile, King Charles III, the British monarch, has described the devastating floods that have ravaged the country in recent months as deeply saddening
In a condolence message to President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, the British monarch said he and his wife were “deeply saddened” about the situation. He sympathised with victims, adding that his thoughts were with those working to support the recovery efforts
His statement reads: “Your Excellency, Dear Mr President, I wanted you to know how deeply saddened both my wife and I are to hear of the many people who have lost their loved ones and whose lives have been so dreadfully affected as a consequence of the devastating floods across Nigeria.
“We remember with the greatest affection our visits to Nigeria and the kindness of the people we met.
“However inadequate this may be under such tragic circumstances, our most heartfelt sympathy is with all those who have suffered so much, and our thoughts are with those working to support the recovery efforts. I know that the United Kingdom stands in solidarity with Nigeria as you recover from these truly terrible events”.
Credit: THE VANGUARD.
