Authorities predict that more than 300 people would perish in Nigeria from the worst floods in ten years, including at least 20 this week. They assert that they have no control over the situation.
The floods in 27 of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital city have affected 500,000 people, including 100,000 who were forced to flee and more than 500 who were injured, according to the National Emergency Management Agency of the country.
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Thousands of hectares of crops have also been damaged by the tragedy, escalating worries that the food supply in Africa’s most populous nation would be disrupted.
According to Manzo Ezekiel, a representative for the disaster management organization, since 2012, “this [the number of flood-related deaths] is the greatest we’ve ever had.”
Every year, flooding occurs in Nigeria, frequently as a result of a lack of infrastructure investment and disregard for environmental regulations. The flooding this year is being attributed by the authorities to local river overflows, unexpected rains, and the release of extra water from the Lagdo dam in neighboring Cameroon’s northern area.
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According to the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, “heavy rainfalls and contributions from foreign flows” like the dam in Cameroon would cause worse floods in 2022 than they did last year.
As two of the nation’s dams began to overflow on Monday, Nigeria’s disaster management organization warned more than a dozen states of “severe implications” in the coming weeks.
The head of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, Mustapha Habib Ahmed, said, “I want to advise all the governments of the frontline states to move away communities at risk of inundation, identify safe higher grounds for evacuation of persons, and prepare adequate stockpiles of food and non-food items.”
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According to Yusuf Sani Babura, director of the Jigawa State Emergency Management Agency, flooding in the north-western Jigawa state has claimed the lives of more than 20 individuals in the past week. More than any other state in the nation, the state has reported 91 deaths this year as a result of flooding.
Babura stated, “We are dealing with terrible floods that are beyond of our control. “We gave it our best effort, but we were unable to stop it.”
Concerns have been raised that the floods could further disrupt the nation’s food supply, which has already been hampered by armed strife in the north-west and center of the country due to the destruction of crops, particularly in Nigeria’s northern area, which produces most of the nation’s food.
In the Benue state, Aondongu Kwagh-bee said he visited his rice farm recently and discovered that a heavy downpour had “wiped away everything.”
“Right now, there is nothing there. Just sand filled up and the rice has been washed away,” the 30-year-old said.
Akintunde Babatunde, an Abuja-based climate analyst, said the main cause of Nigeria’s annual flooding problem was the poor infrastructure of roads, drainage and waste disposal.
“Unusual rainfall is evidence of the changing climate,” he said.
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