On Wednesday 28 May 2025, residents of Mokwa town in Niger State and its environs were confronted by a massive flood water which rapidly swept through the community leaving in its track colossal loses in terns of collapsed houses, public infrastructure notably the main bridge linking the town with other parts. Several lives were lost (put at over 150 so far).
A major feature of the Mokwa flood was the surprised, rapid nature of its occurrence and scale of deaths and the destruction caused. As a flood planner, one easily suspect three likely causes for the flood scenario; one there was hardly an early warning and evacuation system in place, secondly, there seems to be so many structures many of them made of vulnerable building materials such as mud, zink and wood sited within flood prone zone. The third possible cause was that the river which would have contained most of the excess flood water, may have silted over the years. This means that the Niger State Government and its Town planners and other environmental engineers in must return to the drawing board and get their acts together on sustainable basis. Our emergency responders and relief providers such as the NSEMA, NEMA, NSCDC etc. were also caught off guard which leaves our disaster warning and response system with much to be desired.
The people of such affected communities often exhibit exemplary communal sprit in dealing with flood disasters in terms of rescue, sand bagging etc. to fight the advancing flood waters. But their capacities are limited by resource availability and equipment.They provide immediate relief to the victims in terms of food, resettlement and other basic necessities.
But since flood disasters were a recurring decimal in several communities, why has sustainable response became elusive? As a Geographer and Town planner my research experience shows several factors are identified as contributing to flood disasters in our urban settlements. They include the very closeness of some of the them to the river course, the flat nature of topography, the massive silting of the river beds over the years, the false sense of security created from flooding as a result of the construction of Dams which either release excess water downstream at peak periods or when such dams suffer accidental collapse as did the Allau dam which flooded two third of Maiduguri during the last rainy season. Lack of proper land use zoning arrangement and inadequate flood control engineering measures are also pervasive in most of the states.
Federal and state governments in this country are yet to institutionalise sustainable flood control measures. The body language of most governments seems that of treading the familiar course of fire brigade approach of providing ‘relief’ whenever flood disaster occurs while resuming to business as usual thereafter. The usual recourse is to use the state Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs) to address disasters both Natural and Man-made. The way they are structured, the SEMAs, don’t seem adequately capable of handling Mitigation, Rescue, Evacuation and other disaster response measures. They mainly distribute relief materials; even that in a very limited manner. Since we are under a democratic dispensation, state and federal legislators particularly from the flood prone areas, have the imperative role of bringing up the issue of flood disaster under matters of urgent attention, constituency projects or special intervention from the appropriate MDAs. notably the Ecological Fund Office, the Federal Ministries of Agriculture, Environment, Humanitarian Affairs etc.
In a nutshell therefore, for flood prone settlements to be relieved from the recurring flood and other related phenomena, government must abandon its piece meal approach and invest adequately in sustainable Land use, Emergency response, Flood warning and Engineering measures among others. We must evolve radical attitudinal change, establish appropriate institutional framework, embark on robust capacity building, imbibe innovative ideas and sustainable governance and financing mechanisms to arrive at the correct destination.
Mr Isa, a former Executive Secretary,
Jigawa State Urban Development Board, can be reached at kofararewa2018@gmail.com.
