Flooding in Nigeria: The solution lies in the problem

Over the years, Nigeria has witnessed catastrophic flooding incidences that displaced many, led to loss of properties and, most importantly, to the death of many. A comprehensive analysis of the root cause of these flooding incidents shows that the uncontrolled release of water from dams as the notable culprit.

The recent flooding in Borno State and environ caused by the collapse of Alau Dam calls for a critical evaluation of our strategies against flooding.

Although, no matter how you prepare for natural disasters, you can only minimize the loss from the effects. This is true for disasters like hurricane, typhoon, volcanic eruption, earthquake and so on. However, flooding is the most preventable or mitigatable out of these which makes me doubt if flooding is really a natural disaster. It is majorly caused by humans due to poor urban planning, poor environmental management practice and inadequate environmental laws or lack of adherence to these environmental laws.

Dams serve as barricade to control and prevent a body of water from flooding settlements and farmlands. But why is the same dam built for protection of flooding the number one cause of flooding? The problem is not the dam but how it is situated, constructed and managed. Experts tell us that dams are meant to last a life-time of inundation. So, if a dam is constructed and maintained well, it shouldn’t give way after a couple of years. This is not the point of this piece, the point of this article is to build a contingency plan for dam failures by constructing more dams.

You might raise an eyebrow and ask “more dams?” Yes, more dams will solve the problem of flooding in Nigeria to a large extent. When Lagdo dam in Cameroun blasted out huge volumes of water creating the famous 2012 flood disaster that affected 30 out of 36 states in Nigeria, displacing over two million people and killing 363 people, if there were dams at strategic places at the downstream of the Lagdo dam and there was proper dredging and channelization, the effect of the flood would have been mitigated. Because the dams would hold up volumes of water coming with full force from the Lagdo dam preventing it from flooding farmlands and settlements downstream.

Government shouldn’t shy away from building dams to protect citizens from flooding incident. It is a more permanent way of protecting against flooding disaster. Oftentimes, we have seen the government repeating the same patterns when such disaster happens by providing temporary shelter, food and dredging river channels. These are good temporary measures, but a more proactive measure in safeguarding the lives and properties of the people is needed and the best I could think of is, ironically, the cause of many floods. Netherlands faced this problem in the past and was able to secure all of its land and regained new lands from water by building dams, storm surge and flood barriers around its land. The triumphs by the Netherlands over flooding is worthy of emulation by Nigeria.

Everyone in the community has a role to play to prevent the incidents of flooding not just the government. The government needs to provide infrastructure to guard against flooding and also provide legislation for proper urban planning and disaster prevention. The officials also need to uphold the principle of dedication to their roles for a better maintenance and management culture and the people should do basic things which would protect them from flooding by avoiding blocking drainage and and building on river channels. With everyone playing their parts, we would be able to mitigate, if not prevent the occurrence of flooding.

As a Nigerian philosopher said: “The solution to a problem lies in the problem itself or the variant of the problem.” We shouldn’t cast away or attack the problem but embrace and understand the problem and let the problem chart a way for the solution. With this principle, the government should build more dams, enact appropriate legislation and everyone should play their roles diligently to protect us from the devastating effect of flooding.

Olagunju is a postgraduate student of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife.

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