The alert on Lagdo dam

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AS is customary on a yearly basis, the government of Cameroon has alerted its Nigerian counterpart to the fact that it will soon release water from its Lagdo dam. And the Federal Government, also as usual, has in turn advised residents in about 13 states along the flood plain that may be impacted by the outflow of water from the dam to relocate. The yearly alert to the people to evacuate from the flood plain, albeit much better than keeping quiet and doing nothing, is still suboptimal and insufficient in the face of other potent and enduring solutions to this egregious challenge. The routine nature of the ineffectual pronouncements by the government tends to suggest that it is the only way out of the yearly disaster, but that is not correct. There are more effective, sustainable and enduring answers to the question of annual flooding if there is political will and unwavering official disposition to do what is right. For instance, the people on the low plain could be evacuated permanently and relocated to safe locations where they would have access to means of livelihood, including land. Or better still, a structure could be put in place to retain the water flowing from Lagdo dam into Nigerian territory.

The sheer enormity of the tragedy occasioned by the opening of the dam last year should have swayed the government to be more determined and proactive, seeking a permanent solution to the evidently preventable menace of yearly flooding, but somehow, the government still relies on a measure that has failed to serve it well over time. Last year, not a few communities on the low plain were buried under the flood. Also, a fairly long stretch of the popular Lokoja-Abuja expressway was inundated, impeding vehicular movement for a significant length of time. One of the ripple effects of the impassable Lokoja-Abuja road, then, was acute fuel scarcity in Abuja because the trucks conveying petroleum products from the South to Abuja could not reach the federal capital because of the flood. It was that serious.

Why should the government wait for the possibility of a similar fate befalling the country again this year? If citizens could be inconvenienced by asking them to evacuate and leave their natural habitat, can roads and other economic infrastructure be evacuated too? Why does the government have to react instead of being proactive in its effort to avert a disaster whose probability of occurrence is almost one? Why does the government prefer the ineffective rituals to a planned programme of action? Specifically, why should the government be permanently asking people to leave the flood-prone areas without a definite and pragmatic scheme to permanently take the affected citizens out of the annual anxiety and travail of flooding? For instance, why has the government refused to complete the construction of the dam on the lower plain of the currents from the Lagdo dam in Nigerian territory in order to handle the outflow of water?

Perhaps it is imperative to mention that the original plan before the Lagdo dam was constructed in Cameroon was for Nigeria to also construct a dam down the plain to accommodate the usual outflow when the dam is threatened with saturation of water. The Nigerian government started the construction of the dam but has since abandoned it, preferring to annually evacuate citizens rather than finishing the dam which would also be useful for electricity generation. This is an insensitive approach to governance by a government that has not adequately prioritised the welfare and safety of lives and properties of its citizens. The government is urged to realize that the huge burden of the destruction by flood occasioned by the outflow of water, which it bears yearly, is not the only cost there is to the poor management of a recurrent disaster which is usually preceded by premonition. Of greater significance is the cost, both emotional and economic, to the citizens along the flood plain who have to be divorced, on an annual basis, from dignified sources of livelihood and thus have to be provided with the rudiments of life because they lack the capacity to make ends meet on their own while the flooding lasts.

It still beggars belief that a government would subject itself and its citizens to humongous losses yearly due to flooding instead of completing a dam that does not only have the potential to stymie the yearly flooding and rein in the attendant losses, but could also be put to other uses. We strongly urge the government to find the courage and good sense to provide a more sustainable solution to the problem of flooding arising from the release of water from the Lagdo dam by completing the Nigerian dam once and for all. Responding to a challenge that is more or less existential in a retrograde and patently ineffective manner time and again does not portray the country as serious, innovative and forward-looking.

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