Federal Minister Babatunde Fashola's honest admission that Nigeria's annual flooding was not a unique problem peculiar to Nigeria but a common phenomenon across the world is very correct.

However his allusion that the incessant national catastrophe was “a human issue” that should be dumped on the Citizens’ doorstep is the dumbest submission for a Senior Advocate of his caliber because he, his principal and other stewards in government at all levels are the complicit/culpable state actors within the body politic!

The Federal Government's primary responsibility is clearly spelt out in Section 14 (a) (b) (c), of the 1999 Constitution but when top functionaries like Fashola pass the buck to the downtrodden in situations of this nature there is surely more to it than meets the eye!
He went further to claim that States/Local Government Areas officials should also be held responsible for dereliction of duties that could successfully mitigate annual floods and that all blames should not be heaped on the central government alone.

Annual flooding in Nigeria has become a recurring decimal in spite of the fact that it is not every land in Nigeria that is below the sea level.
The riverine areas of Niger Delta are accustomed to river flooding because of their proximity to the Atlantic Ocean but even at that, they could mitigate the effects without incurring much damages or casualties, given the right incentives.

OFFICIAL STATISTICS OF 2022 FLOOD CASUALTIES IN NIGERIA!

*603 people believed to have been killed.
*1.3 million persons displaced from various communities
*31 out of the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), experienced the flooding which is gradually receding.
*82,053 houses were totally submerged.
*2,504,095 million people experienced the flooding on different scales.
*332,327 hectares of land were ravaged by the flood.
*121,318 houses were partially destroyed.
108,392 farmlands were partially submerged.
*2,407 people sustained various degree of injuries.

Ministers at the Federal level including Lai Mohammed minister of information and Culture, Sadiya Umar Farooq, of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development, exonerated the Federal Government but castigated the Citizens. They insisted that there was enough warning about the flood but that States, Local Governments and communities failed to take heed!
WHAT MITIGATING STRUCTURES DID THE UNITARY PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT PUT IN PLACE IN ALL THE YEARS OF ANNUAL FLOODING?

If official warnings of impending flood were sufficient without mitigating factors on ground it will amount to motions without movement. Every year the various weather forecast institutions would predict heavy downpour of rains and climate change FAILED to build buffer dams to mitigate release of excess water from Cameroons Lagdo Dam.
The Dam was constructed on River Benue south of the city of Garoua between 1977 and 1982 to supply electricity to the northern part of the country and also to allow for irrigation of about 15,000 hectares of farmland crops downstream in Cameroons.
Nigeria was promptly advised to build a Buffer Dam downstream precisely in the present the Adamawa State in the early 80s while Lagdo was still under construction in order to counter excess waters when the Dam began operation.
Has Nigeria built its BUFFER DAMS to date? No!

BUT Sadiya Farouq said Federal Government would initiate a bilateral discussion with authorities in Cameroon in November 2022, on the periodic opening of the Lagdo Dam in order to mitigate annual flooding but made no mention of building buffer dams, dredging of lakes, canals and tributaries that should absorb the overflow into the Rivers Niger, Benue and reduce disasters!
She emphasized the need for State Governments to invest in flood management projects and community-based early warning systems.

SPEAKING TRUTH TO CORRUPTED POWER AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF ADMINISTRATION IN NIGERIA!

It common knowledge to the DOWNTRODDEN Nigerians and the International Communities that this kind of institutionalized CORRUPTION coupled with MILITARY AUDACITY which devour the entire TREASURY – not sparing ANNUAL ECOLOGICAL FUNDS from 1999 to date could only occur under a Presidential Military Constitution!

Citizens MUST unite and demand for REFERENDUM to actualize UNICAMERAL PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUTION with which INEC will conduct the 2023 General Elections to produce a PRIME MINISTER AND NOT A PRESIDENT!

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. G-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.