How dam damned Sokoto, Kebbi communities
The famous Goronyo dam in Sokoto State which is rated the second largest dam in the country after Kainji dam broke its barriers in the early hours of Tuesday, September 7th due to pressure, emptying most of the water in it into the small canals that almost immediately twined to form a big river that […]
The famous Goronyo dam in Sokoto State which is rated the second largest dam in the country after Kainji dam broke its barriers in the early hours of Tuesday, September 7th due to pressure, emptying most of the water in it into the small canals that almost immediately twined to form a big river that first washed away Kagaram Rima, Gidam Yarfara and the larger part of Tsaro villages that lived by the broken embankment of the dam. Tsaro village has been completely washed away by the flood.
The portion of the dam that broke which lays around the Goronyo and Sabon Birni local governments border in Sokoto State, flooded across eleven local governments in Sokoto State before forcing its way into Kebbi State where it first ravaged 49 communities in Argungu and Augie areas of Kebbi and displacing over 60,000 people. The flood did not stop there. By Tuesday, September 14th, the flood water from the dam has extended to Koko and Yauri in Kebbi State before it emptied into the Niger River.
How it all started
One of the early witnesses to the breakage of the barriers of the dam that led to the deadly flood, Mallam Shuaibu Labau told Weekly Trust at the dam site in Goronyo that Nuhu, a commercial bus driver was the first to notice that the dam wants to break. He said Nuhu had loaded passengers from a market around Goronyo and was taking them to their villages around Sabon Birni in Nigeria and some other villages in Niger Republic when he noted that the embankment of the dam which serves as motor way had started collapsing.
“It was around 1a.m in the morning during the recently concluded fast of Ramadan. Nuhu managed to cross the damaged portion of the dam embankment with his bus when he noticed that it had broken. He was worried that other commercial vehicles coming after him may not know that the place had collapsed. So, he parked his vehicle and discharged all the passengers in it after crossing the bad portion and ran to our village by the bank of the dam, Tsaro and raised alarm that the dam has broken.
“We rushed back to the scene with him only to discover that the barrier called Kwaltan Mashada had broken and large quantity of water from the dam was gushing out and heading towards our village. Meanwhile, the spot where he parked his vehicle was also about to cave in to the water when he quickly started it and drove it to safety. We ran back to our village only to discover that less than 20 minutes from the breaking of the barriers, there was no sign that people had ever lived in our village. The village was submerged and washed away by water.
“The two other villages close to our own were also affected. Kagaran Rima was the biggest of the three villages; it was also submerged and completely washed away. You see those tall trees in the middle of the river that was where Kagaran Rima used to be. Those three houses you are seeing from here across the river, is what is left of Gidan Bashara. It used to be a big village with over 100 houses and huts,” Shuaibu said.
Mallam Umaru Isa was a resident of Gidan Bashara in Gada local government. His village, Gidan Bashara that is less than 2 kilometers away from the broken barrier of the dam was badly affected by the flood. He said they were among the very early victims whose village was flooded within the first few minutes of the breaking of the dam.
He said: “Of the over 100 houses in our village, only three are now left. It was not up to two months after I had removed the grasses I was using to roof my houses for years, replaced it with zinc, plastered the mud building and married a new wife with my life savings when this disaster occurred. Thank God no life was lost to the flood in Tsaro, Gidan Yarfara and Gidan Bashara. But when the flood occurred we ran to both edges of the river. There was confusion in the first three days of the incident.
“You could see a father at this end while the children or wife is at the other end. There was no means of communication to know where the other is. Nobody could cross the water to tell you what was happening at the other end. It was after the water had withdrawn that we used canoes to cross and unite with our families. Every family in the three villages I mentioned are now united. No death and no case of missing persons from here. We were all awake when it happened. You know we hardly sleep in villages during fasting and it happened during the month of Ramadan.
“But the two other villages far ahead of ours, Gidan Ayuba and Diboni lost about 50 people to the flood. I know of over 20 people from those villages that died in the flood. We went there after everything subsided, fished out corpses from the water and attended the burial of over 20 people at different times. We had men, women and children among the dead. I also know that all our grains, animals and clothes were washed away. There is a very rich man in Tsaro that I lost a lot of cash to the flood. I can’t remember how much, but I believe it is more than a million naira. You know, we keep our money in pots and silos.”
Rescue operations
The immediate problems experienced at the initial stage of the flood disaster in Sokoto State was how to rescue some victims of the flood that were trapped on top of trees or hills in the middle of the flood. Sokoto does not have rivers like Kebbi State and so very few of its people, if any, can swim. There were very few canoes around the dam being used by fishermen. They were very inadequate to make any significant impact in the rescue operation. However, some volunteers mobilized canoes and engine boats that commenced immediate rescue operation. Officials of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) also arrived the state with flying boats and relief materials for the victims. The police marine teams were also at hand to render assistance. Some local governments in the state ordered for the massive construction of several canoes now being used for rescue operation.
Trapped victims were not only rescued from tree and hill tops in flooded areas, but victims who initially escaped from the flood were assisted by such boats in company of volunteers from the Jama’atu Nasril Islam Aid Group, Red Cross, Man ‘O’ War and security operatives from the Civil Defence and Police to recover their properties from their former places of abode.
Several students of the Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto (UDUS) were also trapped in their hostels following the collapsed of the bridges along the two roads leading to the institution through Sokoto metropolis and Illelah road. It was through such boats that the students and members of the University community were rescued along with their belongings.
The Acting General Manager of the state water board, Alhaji Ahmed Moyi Tambuwal had said that the state water board can no longer supply water to the state because their water treatment plants and pumping machines have been submerged in the flood.The Sokoto water treatment plant and pumping machines belonging to the state water board that serves as the main source of water supply to Sokoto and its environs were also submerged by the flood thereby creating acute shortage of water supply to the state.
Residents of Sokoto metropolis now travel several kilometers with containers to source for drinking water. A resident of the town, Mallam Buhari Sama who reside at Abdullahi Fodio road said he had to go to the old air-port, a distance of over 5 kilometers to fetch water for domestic use.
Apparently worried by the near lack of drinking water to majority of the residents of the town, Governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko had through the state radio station, Rima Radio Sokoto solicited the support and assistance of agencies, institutions and individuals with water tankers in the state to borrow them to the state government for use in distributing water to the people.
Sachet water that sold for N5 before the flood is now N10 in some parts of the metropolis. Mrs. Nkechi who sells sachet water at Marina area of Sokoto said a bag of sachet water that contains 20 sachets that was sold for N60 before the disaster is now sold for N130. However, some residents of Sokoto metropolis said the situation is improving as the state water board is able to restore water supply to some parts of the town few days after the incident.
In the mean time, people traveling to Illelah, Gada and Gwadabawa in Sokoto state that have been cut off from the rest of the state as a result of the submerging of bridges and access roads must sail across the flooded river to be able to join other vehicles at the other end before getting to their destination.
A commercial driver plying the route, Mallam Ila Driver said “that was even a new development that started just yesterday because the volume of water in the flooded river has reduced. Within the first one week of the flood, if you want to go to Gada, Illelah or Gwadabawa from Sokoto, you must go through Zamfara State to Katsina, then pass through Jibiya and enter Niger Republic and then to Birnin Korni in Niger then to Illelah. The distance and cost is more than five times before the disaster.”
Causes of the flood
Though government has assured that it will investigate the cause of the flood to guard against future occurrence, the chairman of Goronyo local government, Engineer Zubairu Yari Goronyo said the dam might have broken due to lack of proper maintenance by the federal government that built it. He lamented that since the dam was constructed over 30 years ago, it has never been dredged, flushed and maintained.
He said: “I spoke with officials of the Sokoto Rima Basin Authority maintaining the dam. They told me that they first observed that the water in the dam was above the recommended capacity it could contain and so they opened the canals to reduce it but the water kept coming from Niger Republic. There are canals from Zobe dam in Katsina and the other dam in Maradi in Niger Republic all leading to Goronyo dam. They said they were able to reduce the much they could on the eve of the incident. They were cautions not to over flood the canals. But in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep, the embankment of the river built as a road for cars higher than the surface level in a way that it could protect un-authorized flood break away releasing all the water in the dam. We were even fortunate that it was this end with few settlements and villages that broke. If it were the eastern end, it could have flushed the whole of Goronyo and that will be more disastrous. Twenty three villages from Goronyo local government were affected by the flood, 13 of them have been completely washed away. There is no sign that people had lived there at all. 48 people were reported to me as haven died in the flood from my local government. Two days ago when I visited some flooded areas, I saw the corpses of three women each backing a dead child floating on water. My personal friend phoned me from Argungu that they have recovered 57 corpses that majority of them were identified as people from Goronyo local government. We are talking of corpses we have seen and not even those that are missing. We cannot declare those ones dead because we have not seen their corpses. But they are nowhere to be found. This is the local government worst hit by the flood. The local government is currently sourcing for a land at a secured location to resettle the victims. But we require at least N5 billion to successfully do that. The council does not have the resources. We require assistance to that effect from the Federal Government, international donor agencies and individuals. We have over 60,000 displaced victims from this local government alone.”