[BREAKING] Maiduguri Flood: Experts, Humanitarian Bodies Assess Causes, Cost Of Disaster

Following the devastating disaster in Maiduguri, a narrative repeats the harrowing story of tragedy, neglect, and a profound failure of governance. As experts and humanitarian organisations work together to shed light on the community’s grim realities, the floodwaters of despair and destruction reveal a stark portrait of systemic flaws as well as a heartfelt call to action.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶

CHIBUIKE CHUKWU, KAZEEM AWOJOODU, MOHAMMED ABUBAKAR and STELLA OMONA

peel back the layers of this ongoing crisis, shedding light on the voices of those who have been neglected, advocating for accountability, and championing a path towards resilience, recovery, and a renewed commitment to the well-being of all those affected by the disaster in Maiduguri.

Borno, a state plagued by terror­ism, food insecurity, and multi­dimensional poverty as a result of terrorist and non-state actor activities, has once again come under fire, with devastating floods destroying the majority of the capital, Maiduguri, leaving residents with a bleak future.

On September 10, the Alau Dam, a 112 million metre cube reservoir in the state’s Konduga LGA built in 1986, col­lapsed and overflowed its banks, causing a flood. According to official statistics from the National Emergency Manage­ment Agency (NEMA), nearly half of Maiduguri was buried in the disastrous flooding caused by the Alau Dam, a crit­ical infrastructure designed to regulate water flow and provide irrigation and drinking water, overflowing due to heavy rainfall. According to NEMA, floodwaters swept over 23,000 neigh­bourhoods, drowning the city.

Although residents claim the actu­al casualty figures are much higher, NEMA reported 30 deaths, 414,000 peo­ple displaced, and 23,000 households affected, with 70% of the capital sub­merged.

During an interview obtained by Sat­urday INDEPENDENT, a survivor, Goni Usman, expressed frustration with the search for his wife and five children after the fierce waters allegedly washed them away. “I am done,” he sobbed bitterly as he spoke with rescue workers at one of the town’s displacement camps. “We went to the Babagana Wakil Camp but could not find them. I saw some of my neighbours there, but I could not find my family.”

As a result, the state, previously known and troubled by terrorists and insurgents, with attendant deaths, which is unique to all parts of the northeast that continue to suffer the effects of violent extremism, had a new reason to be enveloped in hues and cries. The flooding had both devastating and eye-opening consequences. For exam­ple, following the unfortunate incident in the capital city, social services were disrupted as the post office, state sec­retariat, and University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital were all submerged.

The threat also targeted the Maidu­guri Correctional Centre, causing more than 200 inmates to flee. It exhumed bodies from Gwange Cemetery and released crocodiles, snakes, and other wildlife from Shehu Kyarimi Park. As a result, there is a growing concern that the public will suffer as a result of contaminated drinking water, with citizens’ health potentially jeopardised. Professor Ahmed Ahijo, Chief Medical Director of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital in Maiduguri, raised the alarm a few days ago about the pos­sibility of disease outbreaks as a result of the state’s flooding.

While speaking with Aljazeera, Professor Ahijo revealed that sever­al expensive cancer machines in the hospital’s 1,305-bed capacity were sub­merged in the flood. He also stated that the hospital has been forced to suspend patient admissions to the wards due to concerns about contamination and in­fections caused by sewage mixed with floodwaters. Ahijo went on to say that the hospital’s oxygen plant had been flooded, making emergency care for patients difficult.

Speaking with our correspondent about the potential consequences of the prison collapse, some police stakehold­ers stated that until the escaped inmates are recaptured, the development poses a significant security threat to the state and beyond, urging increased efforts on this front. Mr Ndukwe Kalu, a retired police ASP from Abia State, stated that Borno residents must assist the police in capturing the fugitive inmates.

“Remember, we are taking over Bor­no State, the primary hotspot for Boko Haram activities. Some of the escaped inmates are indeed terrorists. So, for their safety, residents must assist police in apprehending the criminals,” he said.

Another retired police officer, Em­manuel Okonkwo, a former DPO in Lagos, regretted the unfortunate es­cape due to the security risk it posed but urged authorities to investigate what caused it.

“I am looking at the bigger picture here,” he explained. Overall, the flood has security implications because noth­ing is currently working in Maiduguri. I believe we should take a holistic ap­proach to this and address the causes of the dam overflow,” he charged.

In addition, while the Borno flood­ing caused far more havoc, flooding was common throughout the week, with at­tendant consequences.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Alau Dam in Borno has col­lapsed, as it did thirty years ago in 1994, affecting Kebbi, Kaduna, Sokoto, Katsina, Kwara, Plateau, and parts of Cameroun. Since then, efforts have been made to ensure that the facility is adequately maintained, with approval from both the Borno State and Federal governments.

Musa Abdallah, a former Konduga resident and football stakeholder, told our correspondent that the collapse of the Alau Dam was inevitable because it was a disaster waiting to happen. “The collapse was highly expected, especially for people living close to it in Konduga,” he told the correspondent, noting that there had been very noticeable cracks in the dam’s walls, resulting in leakages. He went on to say that one of the dam’s problems was erosion and that the em­bankments had been severely damaged as a result of years of neglect.

Mr. Popoola Ishola, the regional man­ager of the Oyo State Agribusiness De­velopment Agency (OYSADA), told our correspondent in Ibadan “Our people must learn the habit of living in a san­itary environment and stop throwing trash and waste into waterways. They must stop building structures on wa­terways and always try to keep their drainage free of waste or disposal, such as plastic bottles and other items; this will undoubtedly complement the government’s efforts to reduce the flood disaster in the state and across Nigeria in general.”

In his contribution, Adekunle Akande, a sociology graduate from Ekiti State University and an environmental­ist who lives in Ibadan, stated, “Our peo­ple must refrain from erecting buildings on waterways; this is one of the causes of flood disaster in our communities; with this, the threat of flooding will be reduced.”

Stanley Ijeoma, a climate change expert and Nigeria’s country represen­tative for the World Council for Renew­able Energy and the Global Renewable Energy Administration, described the Borno flooding as a failure of govern­ment authorities rather than a natural phenomenon.

Ijeoma, who is also a board member of Climate Strategies, a global climate change governance think tank based in London, emphasised that Nigeria should learn from the Maiduguri expe­rience and begin to look at and evaluate all of the country’s critical infrastruc­ture to upgrade it to be climate change resistant.

“The Maiduguri flooding is due to human failure rather than natural causes. That is the failure of the au­thorities tasked with ensuring that our infrastructures are truly toxic.

“This is the lesson from the Maidu­guri event, which is that we need to start looking for and evaluating criti­cal infrastructure across the country to climate-proof them. Climate proof means that we must either change or strengthen the design and infrastruc­ture to make it much more difficult for them to give way or collapse in such conditions.

“There will be more brick weather events, more rain, and more extreme weather events. What has happened is that we have traditionally seen reactions rather than responses to these events, correct? So it happens once, then again, and so on until the next cycle.

“So, it appears that we react rather than respond to the stress or the issue. I am not seeing any policy responses. I do not see a coordinated response. I have not seen a presidential inter-ministerial technical committee. Experts from the public, private, and civil society, cor­rect?”

For example, despite previous efforts by Governor Babagana Zulum, NEMA, and the presidency, including the recent approval of N3 billion to the state to han­dle flood guardrails, managers of such funds have failed to be proactive, instead running helter-skelter to contain disas­ters like the Borno menace.

According to a report by HumAngle, a humanitarian organisation dedicated to humanity and championing displace­ment and migration issues, cases of negligence on the part of the state gov­ernment, as well as mismanagement of funds by officials from relevant minis­tries, contributed to the dam’s dilapidat­ed condition and eventual disaster.

According to the report, this neglect is part of a larger pattern of misman­agement that affects infrastructure projects throughout Nigeria, including the Alau Dam. Funds allocated for dam maintenance were misappropriated, with little to no accountability.

Meanwhile, to get more information, our correspondent contacted the Nige­rian Environmental Society (NES) in Abuja via their dedicated phone num­ber, even though the receptionist di­rected him to their Lagos office for any enquiries about the flood. The speaker in the Lagos office, who preferred not to be identified, stated that the flooding was avoidable, citing mismanagement of funds and failures to perform main­tenance as potential causes of the dam’s overflow.

To support this point, Saturday IN­DEPENDENT discovered that between June 2023 and June 2024, the 36 states of the federation received a whopping N39.62 billion as an ecological fund. This is based on Federation Account Alloca­tion Committee (FAAC) data published by the National Bureau of Statistics.

The fund is specifically designated to address national environmental is­sues such as erosion, desertification, flooding, oil spills, and drought. The distribution of funds to states reflects the varying levels of environmental challenges encountered throughout Nigeria. It means that funds were al­located based on the severity of these challenges, and obviously, Borno State received the same.

Governor Zulum has promised to use the situation to invest in initiatives that will help prevent similar incidents in the future. “We will use this calam­ity to invest in sustainable practices and infrastructure that can withstand natural forces. I invite and encourage other stakeholders to work with our agencies to determine the best ways to assist. “We can work together to devel­op a comprehensive response plan that addresses not only immediate needs but also long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts,” he stated.

Furthermore, stakeholders have argued that metrological and relevant emergency response agencies should be equipped with manpower, training, and technology to thoroughly monitor water volume, provide accurate predic­tions, and implement international best practices to mitigate the harsh effects of climate change. They argued that the government should hasten the de­ployment of early warning systems in all states. Residents should not take NiMET’s broadcast warnings lightly.

On the positive side, there have been efforts to alleviate the pains and suffer­ings caused by the flood threat. Accord­ing to a report obtained, donations to Borno from both the government and various bodies have totalled N17 billion naira, with the United Nations and the Federal Government leading the way with N10 billion and N3 billion, respec­tively.

Public figures such as Alhaji Aliko Dangote (N1 billion), Alhaji Aminu Alhassan Dantata (NI.5 billion), Atiku Abubakar (N100 million), Peter Obi (N50 million), and others, including the National Assembly (N175 million), have ensured that the state government can effectively resettle the victims, and Nigerians have called for immediate action to rebuild the damaged infra­structure and resettle the displaced residents.

Critics claim that the government’s slow response and lack of investment in infrastructure, such as dams and flood barriers, exacerbated the crisis. The government’s failure to address the underlying causes of the flooding has worsened the humanitarian situ­ation.

The Nigerian government, UN agencies, and international organi­sations such as the Nigeria Red Cross have continued to mobilise resources to provide emergency aid. The Unit­ed Nations has pledged to redirect funds to help flood victims, with a focus on rescuing trapped people, providing shelter, food, and non-food items, and addressing health and safety issues.

The Nigerian Red Cross said in a statement that humanitarian agencies have continued to provide emergen­cy assistance, with a focus on shelter, food, and healthcare. “We need funds for the humanitarian disaster because lives have been destroyed, leaving thousands homeless and struggling to survive.”

Some experts have pointed the way forward. “To prevent future disasters, we must invest in dam maintenance, flood defences, and other critical infra­structure, as well as implement effective early warning systems and emergency response plans. Long-term solutions must address the underlying causes of the humanitarian crisis, such as ongo­ing conflict and food insecurity.

“The international community’s assistance is critical in meeting the hu­manitarian needs of Maiduguri, Borno State. Working together, we can mitigate the flood’s effects and build a more re­silient community,” says humanitarian expert Alex Maxuel.