North’s August flood of tears
Mr. Antenyi’s family is one of hundreds of the victims of the flood which was caused by storm waters overflowing the banks of two major rivers in the area, namely Rivers Ochekwu and Okpokwu. The heavy downpour started on Thursday, 27 August about 8.00p.m when most families were preparing to go to bed and lasted […]
Mr. Antenyi’s family is one of hundreds of the victims of the flood which was caused by storm waters overflowing the banks of two major rivers in the area, namely Rivers Ochekwu and Okpokwu. The heavy downpour started on Thursday, 27 August about 8.00p.m when most families were preparing to go to bed and lasted hours, dragging into Friday. The usual sweet sleep that comes with rains when the weather becomes cooler was however disrupted hours later when the adjoining rivers swelled up and poured into homes, displacing residents of most sections of the council headquarters and neighbouring communities – all numbering eight.
This is the second time such a devastating flood with such destructiveness is striking in communities of Apa, the first being in 1964 when Oladokpe and neighbouring communities along the two main rivers were washed off, forcing the villagers to relocate. Most of the villagers who relocated in 1964 settled in the eight communities washed off by last weekend’s devastating flood, making it the second time such a disaster will be pushing them far from their ancestral homes.
“I am now homeless; the family has no place to stay, nothing to eat. There is no farm to go to, no business to do. Everything has been washed away by the flood. Only God can save us from this catastrophe,” Mr.Atenyi says.
Flooded with problems
Homelessness, hunger, displacement and lost of livelihood is the dominant theme of the flood that swept across several states in the country. It is still a subject of debate whether human causes or the act of nature is responsible for the devastations. The Technical Assistant of Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), Mr. Ejike Alozie said most times floods occur because of human factors, saying that people are erecting structures along the water channels which cause serious flooding in some cases. He said already NIMET has predicted in its 2009 rainfall prediction and socio-economic implications for Nigeria on February 19, 2009 that such things are expected for this rainy season whereby the Coastal Belts will be dominated by varying degrees of severe rainstorms at the onset and end of the rains.
In Tureta local government area of Sokoto State where hundreds of houses in twelve villages have been sacked by the flood, victims now make a home in a temporary camp that is poorly-built. At the Adarawa temporary camp, most of the victims make use of large-size polythene bags to make their makeshift shelters while some of the children and women sit in the open. Meanwhile, some of the victims have been camped in primary and secondary schools and other existing public buildings within the council area. While no life was reported lost in the devastations of the flood, there was loss of domestic animals, food items and household properties.
Sources say the river in Tureta was overwhelmed by excess water from River Darmi in the neigbhouring Bakura local government area of Zamfara State. A victim at the Yarkofa area in Tureta , Malam Mohammed Tureta says they have lost everything to the flood and have to send their wives and children to go and seek refuge in the homes of relatives.
On Monday in Minna, capital of Niger State, the seven-hour downpour did not spare anything that came its way. Fast running water caused by the rains washed off many houses and cut off major roads within and outside the state capital. It would be recalled that this year’s rains started rather late in Minna, starting less than a month ago but with intensity that has left many people homeless in its wake.
Malam Bashir Umar, 60, living in Dutsen Kura area of Niger State, says the rain started with a drizzle around 2.00a.m on that fateful Monday and accelerated within 30 minutes to a heavy shower which he said lasted till 9.00a.m of the same morning. After three hours of unabated downpour, the wall adjourning his toilet caved in, creating a large opening for water to flood his rooms soaking all his property, including electronics. While he was still attempting to salvage his belongings from the flooding room, the entire building came crashing down completely. It could have been fatal for him, he says, but he was lucky to escape the collapsing building before it fell on him.
He tries to find solace in his predicament, saying, “As a living being, I know I will still have all I have lost if I’m privileged to stay alive for a couple of years more as I am confident that with my hands, all I have lost will still come back to me by the grace of God.” Umar now lives with his married daughter, Hussaina, pending when he can fix the damages to his house.
Others are not as fortunate to have relatives who will take them in. A lot of families now live in uncompleted buildings. Houses which have barely been roofed are now homes to victims of the flood. Families use cartons and curtains to cover open spaces in the uncompleted buildings located mostly in the suburbs of Minna.
“I don’t know when I will leave this place since all I have has been destroyed by rain and as a labourer, I don’t have any money set aside for this kind of emergency,” says Abdullahi, a victim of the flood living in one of the uncompleted buildings. “It was very bitter for all of us the first day we spent the night here as my family and that of one Malam Sani had to pair up in these two rooms for the night. It is a little better for us now that they have left to take shelter somewhere else.”
In Zamfara where hundreds of houses were destroyed by the flood, the victims are receiving the blame for their plight. Sani Mafara, a resident in the state said residents of Mallamawa, Danrini and Hace valley should be blamed for their plight as previous administrations have relocated them with adequate compensation but they refused to vacate the area, thus becoming annual victims of flood. The governor of the state, Alhaji Aliyu Shinkafi also cautioned those dwelling along water ways and valleys to look for safer places as most of the affected people were earlier relocated and compensated but refused to live the flood prone areas.
A grave problem
The worst-hit area in the state was Talata Mafara local government where houses and farm lands were submerged while several animals were drowned. Similarly, dead bodies were forced out of their graves at burial grounds by the flowing waters. It was estimated that about 207 houses were destroyed and over 50 hectares of farmland and produce washed away. In Bakura local government area, about 370 houses, farm lands covering over 30 kilometres and farm produce were destroyed. Other areas affected by the flood include Birnin Magaji, Kaura Namoda and Zurmi local governments were farm produce were also destroyed by the flood.
Zaria also had a similar experience like Talata Mafara where the flood dug and exposed human graves. As it is with the month of August of every year, Zaria has been experiencing heavy downpour since the beginning of the month this year. The rainfall of Sunday night, August 30, 2009, is adjudged by many residents as the heaviest this season.
The worst-hit of the downpour is the old Tudun Jukun, Zaria cemetery where flood took over most parts of the cemetery exposing many corpses buried years ago. The Sunday flood only worsened the predicament of the cemetery as residents of the area have for many years failed in their attempts to secure government assistance to stem the soil erosion that threatens lives, houses, farmlands and the graveyard. Tudun-Jukun has an estimated population of over 200,000 people but the graves of the town’s cemetery have, on yearly basis, been exposing their occupants, courtesy of gully erosion and flood.
In Kaduna and Kubwa, a suburb in Abuja, the flood was as devastating. Mr. Michael Onyekachi who lives in Kubwa shares his experience thus: “Between 3.30am and 4.00am on the fateful day, my wife and I heard rumbling and what seemed like clattering of our things. We listened for heavy winds but heard none. It was when I reached for my torch and switched it on that I saw water had practically layered our floor and started lifting things which were making the sounds we heard. We didn’t have much time to pick any tangible things as the water pressure was overwhelming. We just woke our children up and swam with them on our backs into the next compound at the Excellent Grade Nursery and Primary School, which has a sloping plain. It was here my neighbours and I all took refuge until the water level dropped at about 9.00am. It was then we started sorting ourselves out. But the water that gathered at the entrance of the compound didn’t recede until about midday and even when the FCT Minister of State came here, he couldn’t get in until about an hour later and with the aid of rain boots. We lost furniture, all our electronics, beddings, documents amongst other vital possessions. We had the same experience last year but that was not as devastating as this one turned out.”
The problem is not only a Nigerian one (see sidebar on page 4), as some 350,000 people in West Africa have been affected by serious flooding, the United Nations said yesterday, noting that “significant” rainfall has lashed the region this year. “Since June, the rainy season has been more significant, there has been much more rain than usual,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Burkina Faso, Niger, Ghana, Guinea, Senegal and Benin have all been hit by the floods. In Burkina Faso, five people have been killed and 150,000 people affected, while in Ghana, 25 deaths have been linked to the floods. Some 3,500 homes have been destroyed in Niger and in Guinea, 10,000 people have been affected by the floods. In Benin, 20,000 people have been affected while in Senegal, emergency services had to be called in to drain out water which had swamped 30,000 homes.
Still more tales of woe
Suzy Simon Dolin, 15, dark and tall, wearing a red T-shirt and blue skirt, bends into the water to pick her books, flowing in the flood. She tries to retrieve some that were under the flood, while she watched helplessly as others follow the flood. She looked confused and tired as she watched other family members struggle with the water as they pick their belongings in the water. “These are the only books I have,” she says. “And if I don’t get them back what will I use when I resume school?”she lamented, in tears.
Suzy’s family was among many others that have to struggle with the flood to salvage their belongings at Bayan Fili, Nassarawa area of Kaduna, after the place was submerged following torrential rains that lasted hours on Sunday night, rendering hundreds of people homeless.
Nasarawa is among four communities neighbouring River Kaduna that were submerged on the unfortunate night. Other affected areas are Kigo Road, New Extension, Rafin Guza in Kawo and Kabala Doki. The areas, Weekly Trust learnt were last affected by flood in 2003.
Sunday 30 August, 2009, Kaduna experienced a heavy downpour that lasted till Monday morning. “It is the intensity of the rain that caused River Kaduna to overflow its boundary thereby getting to the home of people that live in flood-prone areas,” says Mustapha Sulieman, Zonal Coordinator North-East, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Recalling her ordeal, Suzy who is a junior secondary 3 student at Government Day Secondary School, Nasarawa says her father woke them up early Monday after he had discovered that the whole house was covered in water.
“When my father woke us, we first took our mattresses to the table in the parlour, and we began to put other thing on it. When the day broke, we began to take our things out one after the other,” she says.
A victim of the flood at Kigo Road New Extension, Reverend Audu, says although his house was not affected on Monday, he came back to see his house submerged in water after he came back from church the following day. “On Monday I helped my pastor colleague to take his things at the other street, not knowing the water will get to this place. We thought that because his house was closer to the river that was why it affected them. But eventually, this entire neighbourhood became flooded.”
But while government officials say the actual cause of the flood is the heavy rain of the months of August and September, the residents of these areas say it is not so. They said other factors other than rain were responsible for the calamity that befell them. Celestine Ike, a businessman, claimed that the river overflew its boundary because the Kaduna State Water Board (KSWB) opened it dams, a situation which the Public Relation Manager of KSWB, Dalhatu Ahmed, says is not true.
The state government has blamed the people for building houses on the flood-prone areas. During his visit to one of the areas, Kaduna State Governor, Namadi Sambo says people whose houses were touched by the flood should desert such areas because they were illegally allocated to them. “If they refused to relocate from these danger areas to safer ones, we may be forced to relocate them because we will not allow them to be endangering their lives,” he said.
“Government should provide good road and drainage system,” says Reverend Audu. If you come here, even without the rain, the place is messed up. If drainages are built the flood can be minimised. Government should be able to enforce its law and make sure that people comply.” Other residents of Kigo Road, including one Chiedu Edukandu, told Weekly Trust that government is not serious. He said: “Even when [Governor] Sambo came here with NEMA and Fire Brigade people, including TV cameras, he just made a speech and left. The NEMA and Fire Brigade people followed him and left. Is it the governor who has emergency or us, the masses?”
Then the General Manager of Kaduna State Urban and Property Development Authority (KASUPDA), Alhaji Rufai Mohammed says his agency should not be blamed for allocating the flood areas to people to build because it has limitations. According to him, the likely cause of flooding in Kaduna over the years is because the city has overgrown its master plan.
“The Kaduna master plan has outlived its usefulness since the 1980s. And the master plan has not been reviewed all these years. Without the master plan no planning agency can guide development except by using its discretion. And without master plan nobody can say this is what is supposed to be here or there. So an agency which is supposed to control development if it doesn’t have the basic tools in its hands there is nothing it can do. According to the master plan that was developed for the city in 1969, Kaduna is expected to house a population of about 500,000 by 2017. And that is the master plan we are using. And now we have 6 years to go and the master plan has been beaten. The master plan has been beaten since in the 1980s; that is 15 years behind. Kaduna’s population today is well over a million. So what do we do with the limited space that is meant for 500,000 and we are now a million,” he says. “No one can control over development in a town when the town is attracting development.”
It is a similar observation that can be made about all the towns and cities in Nigeria where population growth and development had spiralled beyond expectation. The question though is when will the states and the federal government draw up and enforce new development plans that will take cognisance of the reality on ground. The other observation, especially for rural areas affected by flood, is that they are always forgotten when disaster strikes. One Malam Jamilu Salim of Hayin Dan Bushiya in Kaduna said: “Perhaps it is until people die in hundreds before government will do something serious for this serious problem. Perhaps.”