ONE out of the many blessings of Nigeria as a country is that it is hardly beset by totally unpreventable or unmitigable natural disasters. Virtually all the frequently occurring disasters in the land are either self-inflicted or preventable. The problem has always been the lackadaisical official approach to things; challenges are not attended to until they snowball into crises. That is why it is not really surprising that despite the strident warnings by the Nigerian Metrological Agency (NIMET) about the impending heavy rains this year, the country has been experiencing massive flooding without adequate and appropriate countervailing responsive measures. And that has, in a sense, rendered useless the availability of scientific knowledge that predicted the onslaught of the flood.
The usual tardiness and corruption-prone approach to public action and governance ensured that nothing was done concretely to minimise the negative effect of the predicted flood, leaving almost the whole country under the deleterious effects. Even if there was no premonition about the impending flood this year, it would have been quite natural to expect that following the havoc wreaked by flood in some states of the country last year, the government and its relevant agencies would have been more proactive, mitigating the impact of flooding and averting the nightmarish experience this year. But it would appear that lessons have not been learnt: when you are not swayed by others’ or even your own mistakes to take positive and corrective actions, you suffer the full consequences of avoidable, or at least mitigable, errors.
Last year, substantial portions of Bayelsa and Kogi states were flooded for a considerable length of time, with that of Kogi impeding vehicular movement on a major expressway leading to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. And this year again, citizens are agonising about the blockage of major roads in many parts of the country as a result of virtually controllable flood whose occurrence was predicted. Must every premonition be followed by a disaster before it elicits official action? And must travelling by road become a nightmarish experience for citizens on a yearly basis? Nigerians deserve much more than such a languorous handling of their affairs by the government.
The negative effects of the heavy rains has been felt across the country, with conditions in Lagos, Osun, Ondo, Edo and other coastal states presenting remarkably scandalous experiences. In Edo State, for instance, even the governor’s convoy was delayed for a considerable length of time within the state capital, Benin City, due to a flooded road, showing the extent of the avoidable destruction wrought by the rampaging flood. Is it that major roads in the country were constructed without proper drainage systems or that the rains were so heavy that rivers were simply overflowing their banks, causing massive flooding? Whatever the case is, official sloppiness and tardiness are implicated in the sordid state of affairs. To be sure, we acknowledge that flooding is a natural occurrence that cannot be fully prevented. However, the reality of available advisories on its nature and extent suggest the possibility of appropriate actions by the government and concerned agencies to prepare for the minimisation of their effects. And this has brought to the fore very lucidly, the incapacity, inefficiency and ineffectiveness of governments across the country. They should all be embarrassed by the level of destruction Nigerians have seen on flooded roads this season.
While we urge governments at all levels to up their ante and be more proactive in confronting floods and flooding challenges, it is also imperative that citizens stop activities that occasion or exacerbate the phenomenon. Such activities include dumping of refuse in the drains and blockage of the natural courses of rivers. Specifically, governments at federal and subnational levels must be deliberate and intentional about evolving proactive and pragmatic programmes to tackle the recurrent challenge head-on. They should stop treating predicted and controllable floods as a fait accompli. It is time they began showing evidence of planning and preparation. We hope the official embarrassment caused by the floods this year will elicit commensurate positive thinking and action on its part, vitiating the need for sad commentaries on the same subject in the nearest future.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then