INVESTIGATION: Despite ecological funding, floods wreck Benue communities

This investigation by PATRICK EGWU is the third part of a year-long investigative series on climate change disinformation and corruption produced as part of the Bertha Challenge Fellowship. It looks into corruption, lack of transparency and accountability in the management of ecological funds by the Ecological Project Office.

Read part one here and part two here

Felix Nguseter Tsenongu, 32, a local mason apprentice, was a lively young man who had dreams of becoming an engineer. On July 18, he went to work, but didn’t make it home. His family became worried because he never stayed out late.

At around 9 p.m., Mngusuun Tsenongu, Felix’s step-mother and neighbours checked his room at night and couldn’t find him. They raised an alarm and a search and rescue party was launched. The next day around 11a.m., the search team made a grim discovery. Felix’s body was washed up at a busy intersection in the community.

“We were all devastated.

“Eyewitnesses said he was trying to cross the local bridge which connects our community from the other community he went to work at when the water took him away”, Mngusuun narrated.

Felix was buried on July 30.

“Now his dreams have gone with him”, Mngusuun lamented.

Mngusuun said Felix was loved by everyone in the community. Photo by Patrick Egwu

Flooding is a major issue in the area where Felix lived with his family. Despite billions of naira disbursed to the state government, active erosion sites, visible impacts of flooding, and uncompleted or abandoned ecological projects dot the community of more than 20,000 residents. This is also the situation across the state of an estimated six million people.

Per data obtained from the Ecological Project Office website, only eight ecological contracts were awarded to Benue State from 2015 to 2022. During field trips to the state, Ripples Nigeria could only access two of such projects which were uncompleted, while the others were not found.

Where did the funds go?

In less than five years, Benue State has received about N5 billion ($2.9 million) as ecological funds, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). These funds were part of monthly disbursements received by each of the 36 states in the country from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), the nation’s central purse. With the funds, states are expected to tackle ecological challenges such as floods, drought and desertification erosion in their respective regions.

According to NBS data, the state received 368,431,037.83 ($217,000) from Jan. to June 2024, but only 49,665,954.25 ($29,000) – less than 13.5 percent was spent to respond to climate issues in the area. The NBS data also showed that the state received N758.97 million ($448,000) between June 2023 to June 2024 and N1.321 billion ($780,000) between 2021 and 2022.

Infographics showing ecological funds received from 2020 to 2024

Ripples Nigeria reached out to Ugwu Odoh, the commissioner for Water Resources, Environment and Climate Change, the state-body responsible for attending to climate disasters and other environmental challenges, to ask about the ecological funds and how they have been utilized.

Ugwu told Ripples Nigeria that he can’t give details of how the funds were spent over a phone interview. When the reporter asked if he preferred a zoom interview instead, he said he was in a meeting and could only speak after 7 p.m. Ripples Nigeria called at the given time but Odoh did not respond to calls or text messages. Subsequent phone calls the next day were not responded to.

The commissioner’s attitude relating to funds and how it was used is not particularly unusual. Public officials in Nigeria are notorious for evading media queries on corruption or accountability.

The utilization of ecological funds at the state levels has been a subject of intense scrutiny from communities affected by flooding and erosion, activists and civil society groups. Benue is one of the flood-red zone states, with annual flooding destroying farmlands and causing displacements and deaths.

Mngusuun and a neighbour pointing towards the direction where Felix was washed away by floods in July. Photo by Patrick Egwu

Benue state shunned a probe panel set up in 2023 by the Public Complaints Commission to look into the utilization of the ecological funds received by states. The commission was investigating the N177.8 billion ($105 million) that was shared to the 36 states. Of the 27 states invited, none showed up.

“Accountability and transparency are key elements to make the funds work,” said Amara Nwankpa, public policy expert and director, partnerships and development at Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Foundation, a nonprofit. “There should be more supply of transparency, especially in the context of Nigeria where environmental disasters happen frequently.”

Nwankpa said if a state is not accountable for the funds received, it should be denied access in the future.

“You shouldn’t qualify for the next rounds of disbursements until you provide accountability, evidence and reports of accomplishments and how you spent the previous funds received,” he said. “The impact of the previous disbursements should affect your ability to be able to access the funds.”

He noted these details give impetus to beneficiary communities and civil society groups to hold the state receiving the ecological funds to account.

“If the state is unable to access the funds in the future or denied or blacklisted, people can ask questions and then the accountability issue can be brought to the fore,” he said.

There are no mechanisms to track how states use the monthly funds it receives from the federal accounts. Each monthly disbursement comes with “ecological funds” specifications without any clear demands for accountability or how they were used.

Nwankpa said monitoring the use of the funds is important, noting that “this is a time when we need a fund like this to perform especially for Nigerians who are impacted by these disasters.”

“There is a need for the management and transparency around the disbursement of the fund to improve so the impact is felt where it is most needed,” he said.

The human costs of flooding

Benue is a flood-prone area and experiences seasonal flooding. In 2022, when Nigeria experienced one of the worst floods in over a decade which killed more than 600 people and displaced more than 1.5 million, Benue was hard hit, with 24 casualties recorded and about 150,000 people displaced.

In July, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the national body which responds to emergencies, predicted possible floods in Benue and called for urgent responses at all levels.

Felix is not the only casualty from recent flooding across the state. More than 10 flood-related deaths have been recorded since July this year.

Daniel Salome, a mother of seven children, is a rice farmer and seller who lives close to the banks of river Benue, one of the longest rivers in the country which measures about 1400 kilometres in length. The river regularly overflows during the peak of the rainy seasons between June and September.

Salome said she has counted some huge losses as this year’s floods destroyed her 3-acre rice farm.

“I went to my farm the next day and left in tears. Everything was gone and the rice field was empty,” she said. “I lost everything I had worked for and didn’t expect this would happen to me.”

Daniel Salome lost her rice farm to floods in Benue state. Photo by Patrick Egwu.

Hyacinth Gegu’s experience is all too similar to Salome’s. He is a local rice farmer and said the flooding caused a lot of destruction for “us and properties were destroyed including our rice mills.”

“The storage house was overflowing and everything there was gone with the water,” said Gegu who also witnessed the 2012 flooding which was considered as the worst in over 50 years. “We couldn’t save anything because we were trying to save our lives. Now people living close to the riverbanks have been warned to move away.”

Hyacinth Gegu said “everything went with the water” during the floods. Photo by Patrick Egwu

As a result of the flooding disaster in the state, local emergency response agencies such as the Benue State Management Agency (SEMA) have been working with international partners to coordinate response and provide relief to displaced residents and record data related to the unfolding climatic challenges. The International Organization for migration uses its displacement tracking matrix, which gathers and analyzes data related to the flooding.

Between Sept. 4 and 9, 2024, the IOM reported they identified 22 locations that were impacted by floods. More than 7,092 individuals in 1,089 households affected by the floods were identified.

The IOM data said the floods displaced many residents, while some remained in their affected communities.

From assessments, 23 percent of the affected houses are habitable but need repair, 13 percent of the houses are partially damaged and two percent of the houses are totally destroyed. The data revealed that in 45 percent of the locations assessed, crop farming was among the primary sources of income.

Infographics showing flooding in Benue state between 4-8 Sept. 2024.

Back at Felix’s home, Mngusuun was cuddling her two-year old when a bird perched on a dwarfed orange tree nearby. She stares and looks away immediately.

She said she misses Felix because he had a special way of lighting up the mood in the house whenever he was around.

“He is a very decent and respectful guy, doesn’t look for trouble and always minds his own business,” she said. “I’m still reeling from the news of his death.”

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