Bracing for Impact to Wrestle Flooding

The rainy season no longer brings hope for bountiful harvests, it now rings the bell of panic. Each year, as the skies open, anxiety spreads like the rising waters themselves. The fear is no longer if floods will come, but when, where, and how deadly they will be. Already, the signs are dire.

In the past few months, severe flooding has swept through Nigeria and several other countries, claiming lives and destroying communities. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that in 2024 alone, floods affected 7.5 million people across 18 countries in West and Central Africa. Chad suffered the worst, with 1.9 million people affected. Niger followed with 1.5 million. Nigeria stood at 1.3 million. DR Congo, 1.2 million. By July 2025, an additional 129,000 people across Nigeria, Ghana, the Central African Republic, and Congo had also been displaced or otherwise impacted.

In Nigeria and the Central African Republic, over 5,300 houses have been destroyed or severely damaged, with Nigeria accounting for 3,800 of those. Farmlands have not been spared. More than 5,300 hectares are under water, threatening food security just as food inflation continues to hit record highs. At least 361 people have died in Nigeria alone this year due to flooding. In one tragic incident last month, floodwaters swept through Mokwa in Niger State, leaving up to 600 people missing and entire communities gutted.

These are not isolated events. The UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction now pegs the annual global economic cost of disasters, including those worsened by ecological damage at $2.3 trillion. Yet, Nigeria continues to treat flooding as a surprise rather than a certainty.

NiMET, Nigeria’s meteorological agency, has flagged Sokoto as a high-risk zone for flash floods this year. Other states with significant flood risk include Kaduna, Zamfara, Yobe, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Adamawa, Jigawa, Taraba, Niger, Nasarawa, Benue, Ogun, Ondo, Lagos, Delta, Edo, Cross River, Rivers, and Akwa Ibom. It’s a roll call of warning, yet the same script of inaction plays out.

The agency has urged residents to clear drains, prepare emergency kits, switch off power during storms, and stay alert. Parents are advised to keep children home when roads are submerged. But these advisories ring hollow in communities where there is no real infrastructure to rely on and where emergency response is often too little, too late.

Since 2011, Nigerian states have received over N620 billion in ecological funds meant for environmental sustainability and disaster response. But when floods strike, the lack of preparation is glaring. Entire communities are washed away, and citizens are left to wonder what became of all that money. Accountability is nowhere to be found.

A 2025 report by SBM Intelligence paints a grim picture: since July 2024, floods have overrun 31 of Nigeria’s 36 states, displacing or affecting nearly 1.2 million people and destroying an estimated 180,000 hectares of farmland. For a country already battling food insecurity, this is a devastating setback.

Yet much of this destruction could be mitigated, if only political will matched meteorological warnings. One persistent oversight is Nigeria’s failure to build buffer dams to absorb overflow from the Lagdo Dam in Cameroon. Every year, Cameroon releases excess water. And every year, Nigeria scrambles. Agreements to build containment structures have been collecting dust for over a decade.

The consequences of this neglect compound each season, with deadly results. Local governments continue to approve construction on flood plains. Urban drainage remains clogged with waste. In cities like Lagos, enforcement of environmental setback rules around canals and waterways is weak to nonexistent. And while some residents resist evacuation when warnings are issued, many simply have nowhere else to go.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and its state counterparts must do more than react, they must plan. Relief centres should be established before the rains arrive, with protocols in place for evacuation, shelter, and eventual return. Children, elderly residents, and those in vulnerable, low-lying areas must be prioritized. But ultimately, no amount of sandbagging or emergency tents can substitute for what Nigeria really needs: political courage and long-term infrastructure planning.

Flooding is no longer a seasonal inconvenience; it is a national emergency that repeats itself with painful predictability. The devastation it causes is not just natural, it is also man-made. Years of missed opportunities, unspent budgets, and ignored warnings have turned the rainy season into a season of death.

To truly build a Nigeria that can withstand the cycles of seasonal flooding, we must move beyond reactive panic and embrace sustainability as a guiding principle. Green infrastructure, responsible urban planning, and enforced environmental regulations have all become expedient. From constructing permeable roads that reduce surface runoff to restoring wetlands that naturally absorb excess water, eco-friendly solutions exist but require political will and citizen cooperation. If Nigeria is serious about protecting lives, livelihoods, and the environment, she must commit to a future where development is in harmony with nature, not in defiance of it.