File photo of flood in Nigeria.

*Villages situated on the banks of River Niger bear the impact of flooding resulting from warmer weather, as the rainfall rises.

NKRUMAH BANKONG-OBI/Awe

Audu Lawal, 70, has lived in his ancestral land in Rukubi, Doma Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, since he was a child. He expects to remain here until he dies. But there is a change which causes him to fret. Each time the clouds form in the skies, his mood changes. The prospect of rain no longer excites him, it worries him, he says. The old man dreads the prospect that, unlike his father and ancestors, he might not be buried in his homeland when he dies. “You can see, I may die elsewhere [in displacement] when this happens and be buried far away from our home, if God calls me at a time like this,” the aged pensioner told TheNEWS through an interpreter. Pa Lawal’s fears are established. For nearly a decade now, flooding has been a recurrent challenge in his community and others sitting on the banks of River Niger, one of the two great rivers in Nigeria that empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Once the water levels rise, the Nasarawa State government warns its citizens to evacuate the areas and move to the highlands and return when the water subsides or when the dry season sets in.

Flooding in Nasarawa has become commonplace. As the communities are undaunted by murky waters, the only option they have is to move to other areas less affected. Last year for example, the communities in riverine areas and those on the fringes of the Niger lost homes, farms and other property estimated at over 5 billion naira, a little over 3 million USD. Many people in such areas moved to make-shift shelters meant for internally- displaced persons, IDPs.

Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State. His govt is asking people in affected areas to move.jpg

A middle-aged farmer, Hajara Iliyasu, from Tunga in the Awe Local Government area, believes that her community has offended God and they are being punished. She says if the area floods this year, her fears would have been confirmed. Tunga had been the epicentre of clashes between farmers and suspected Fulani herders for some years. The crisis which is only brought to a fragile end by the state government and security agencies has led to the loss of lives and destruction of crops and animals. The loss suffered by the community makes Hajara believe that some supreme being is responsible for the problems with the herders and the now fear of floods. Unknown to her, challenges result from climate change. Some experts believe that nomadic herders, facing droughts in the north, move southwards in search of grasses to feed their cattle, they come in a frontal collision with farmers who cultivate the land. As the animals destroy the crops, the farmers are forced to retaliate. This competition for scarce vegetation results in conflict, which leads to some people being displaced from their homeland.

As the fear of impending flooding intensifies, the government is sounding warnings that residents of low-lying areas of Tunga, Rukubi, Odeni in Nasarawa Local Government, Loko also in Nasarawa Local Government Area and Umaisha in Toto Local Government Area should move. Already, the State government says is working assiduously to minimize the impact of flooding on the people. Beauty Ebu, the senior special Advisor to Engineer Abdullahi Sule, the governor of Nasarawa State, on Fire and Disaster Management, said resources; human and material have been mobilized to ensure that people leave areas where rainfall will be high and lives could be endangered. She listed the provision of transportation, toiletries, food supplies and shelter as some means that the government is adopting to help those who move.

Besides, Ms Ebu told reporters that plans have been worked out to help those affected to resettle when the flood is over. “On our part as a government, we will support the victims of the flood, particularly those whose crops, farmlands and houses are affected,” she told reporters during a routine environmental exercise in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital. Corroborating, Mohammed Rosh Garba, permanent secretary in the State Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, said the state prioritizes the safety of those affected by created awareness based on the early signs and feedback that they get from improved technologies. “On the issue of relocating those in the fold-prone areas, we, as a State, under the NEWMAP project, have installed early warning devices in all these flood-prone areas, so that if there is any flood that is coming from somewhere, there will be an increase in water flow, we will be easily alerted. This has been linked to the GSM telephones of people in such areas and to our phones so that if there is a flood or any sign that flood will occur, this thing will give a signal.

Indeed, the severity of the flooding in some parts of the State has led to innovations in the cropping system. Due to the loss of crops to flood, the government through the Nasarawa State Agricultural Development Project, NADP, had devised a means of ending the effects of the recurring flood. The agency began to advise farmers to plant crops with shorter maturation periods. Abdul Rabiu, a director of Extension Services in the organisation told this reporter last year that farmers, if they adopt this strategy, would harvest their crops before the onset of the heavy rains that result in floods. “We advise our farmers to use short-duration crops like maize, we have rice, we also have cowpea. If you plant before duration, it will not get to the flood period before you harvest,” he told this reporter after the devastating flooding that happened last year.

Climate change has been blamed for the floods. In the localized setting, human activities such as bush burning, tree-felling and poor urban planning have been blamed for this global phenomenon. Muhammed said his Ministry constantly undertakes advocacy visits to intimate residents of the State of the effects of global warming and the need to maintain decent environmental standards. “We have a way of holding group talks with the people. We make them realize that it is the activities of humans – people like you and me, that bring about climate change. And this will affect us negatively. So, for us to mitigate the impact of changing weather, we tell them to consciousness imbibe good environmental practices like avoiding cutting trees for charcoal-making, uncontrolled fishing, and bush burning, sometimes, we even ask the elderly ones if they still see certain animals they used to see in the past. When they say ‘no,’ it drives home the point about deforestation and how that can affect our climate in a bad way.

Although is hard to blame the changing weather squarely on the people residing in Nasarawa State, there is scant doubt that some of their activities aggravate the climate crisis in their localities. The massive burning of trees for charcoal, renewed interest in large-scale mining and other socioeconomic practices contribute to the weather crises. As advocacy continues, experts express hope that local actions can be taken to face up to this worldwide challenge.

The Federal government of Nigeria warned last week that twenty-two states including Nasarawa face flooding and are the risk of flooding. Data from the National Flood Early Warning Systems Centre of the Federal Ministry of Environment indicates that communities in flood plains are at risk as well as communities near rivers Benue, Donga and Ogun.

Pix I: File photo of flood in Nigeria

2: Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State: His govt is asking people in affected areas to move

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