OPINION: Floods have eaten our dinner

SOMETHINGS are better said in your mother tongue. A second language, no matter how you are adept at it, may never really convey the core of the message you intend to pass across. And that is why I will commence our discourse today by saying that ”eburu ozu onye ozo, odika ebu osisi kporo nku”, Igbo for ”when the corpse of a stranger is being moved, you are tempted to feel that it is a mere piece of wood”. The translation to English language will always come out poorly unless you are endowed with the combined language and communication skills of F.C Ogbalu, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche.

So, when a few months ago the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Antonio Guterres, visited Pakistan and toured the flood-ravaged country, and then described what he saw as ”floods on steroid”, some of us were wont to regard what he said as one of those fanciful phrases of a global civil servant on a fleeting visit. For many of us in Nigeria, Pakistan is a distant land notwithstanding that we are supposed to be living in the age of the world as a global village. If we felt anything about the destruction of lives and livelihoods by ”floods on steroids” in Pakistan, it was only to the extent of our shared humanity. Pakistanis are human beings. What affects them should be of concern to citizens of the world. But only so

far. The government of Pakistan with its troubled politics and its people are still grappling with the floods and their aftermaths, but the world has since moved on.

And this is where Nigeria comes in. No global leader or civil servant has visited with us. None has made any sympathetic statement or even a fanciful phrase on flooding in Nigeria which has virtually buried parts of the 25 of the 36 states of the country from the arid region of the north to the coastlines of the south. No. Sorry. There have been tepid statements of sympathy from two or three countries, and a gift of a paltry one million dollars from the government of the United States. To be sure, the US owes us nothing. So we should be grateful for their support. America itself suffers from an avalanche of natural calamities including tropical storms, typhoons, hurricanes, floods and sundry disasters almost all year round. They have their hands full. I do not want to contemplate what would be the fate of Nigeria if half of the natural disasters that hit America every year happen to us.

We are not good at keeping records but the claim in town is that the current flooding is the worst in the last 10 years. In other words, Nigeria’s last worst experience with flooding was in 2012. But nobody has provided the evidence- not the government, not the meteorological services, not the independent experts, and not even the media. The Internet, our outsourced memory, tells us that the 2012 floods which affected nearly eight million people and ravaged 32 states were actually worse than the 2022 floods. Official figures claim that the current floods have so far affected about one and a half million Nigerians and between 25 to 27 states. So the floods in 2022 are no worse than those of 10 years ago in terms of impact on people and states. If so, then why the growing anxiety that Nigerians are in for a raw deal in the coming months and years.

Well, the fears and anxieties are real. And founded. In 2012 Nigeria was not exchanging the baton for global capital of poverty with India which population is about six times that of Nigeria’s; the rate of inflation was closer to single digit instead of the over 20 percent today; herders attacks on farmers were not as pronounced and brazen as they are now; exchange rate of the Naira to the American dollar was nowhere near the prevailing N750/1USD; the rates of human and capital flights were not as troubling; the glaring lack of capacity by our rulers in 2012 was not as obvious as it is presently; transition politics and the attendant lame duct effects were not prevalent; sweeping insecurity in virtually every region of the country was absent; exclusion of parts of the country from governance and the deliberate denial of the little dividends of democracy as is presently the experience was not a state policy; and, the general hopelessness in the country was not predominant. These are some of the reasons why the floods of 2022 should be concerning to every Nigerian.

The prognosis is bad and the will to confront head on the many negative after effects of the floods is lacking. The regime of the All Progressives Congress [APC] and the leadership of the President, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, are uninspiring. The regime was underwhelming at the best of time in its over seven years of reign and has further deteriorated in the run up to what could be a hotly contested, and probably more fiercely disputed, general elections in 2023. Food inflation which is already bad is one area that the floods will impact a majority of our citizens. It is already frightening that about 80 million Nigerians currently live in abject poverty. Another 50 million or so live in relative poverty. To imagine that it would get worse should be a source of worry to those Nigerians who feel that no matter what they would be untouched by the looming famine. When many more people drop below the poverty line as a result of these floods and an incompetent regime, insecurity will spike and there would be no hiding place for the rich- not in their homes, not at work or business places, not inside their luxury cars while commuting for business or social engagements, not while transiting between states either by road, rail, waterway or by air.

READ ALSO: Nigerian govt confirms 612 dead, 2,776 injured in floods

The Abuja-Kaduna train jacking and hostage taking of March 28, and the terror incident at the Kaduna airport about the same period have demonstrated that all imaginable attack strategies have been perfected and in the bag of the daring and emboldened terrorists.
The Nigerian state is already very weak and the situation will only get worse when the 2022 floods begin to take its tolls on our economy and our citizens. Should the country’s situation deteriorate further, as is likely to be the case, the recruitment field for the Boko Haram, Ansaru, Iswap and sundry Islamist and murderous terrorist groups will widen. That will ensure that our already overstretched and wobbly security agencies will inevitably buckle under. It is better we do not imagine a country where anarchy, which is far greater than what we are experiencing today, will be the order of the day. Nobody will be safe. In addition, Nigeria’s fragile healthcare sector will be further negatively impacted by the floods. Flood-induced diseases are bound to be on the rise as the floods recede. There are already reports from some parts of the country about rise in diarrhea and other diseases associated with floods. Our poorly equipped and supplied hospitals are sick and our doctors are fleeing the country in droves. So who will attend to the sick and where will the supply of the medicaments come from? From a regime which claims the country is broke while it [regime] superintends the broad daylight stealing of billions of dollars worth of Nigeria’s crude oil. For our health facilities and other sectors of the society, it could just be that a combination of Venezuela, Sri Lanka and Lebanon is loading. I will join you in saying God forbid even when I know that whatever happens to Nigeria, going forward, will be self-inflicted.

With many farmers displaced first by terrorist- herders and now by floods and over 600 hectares of rice fields and much more hectares of other food crops reportedly washed away, Nigerians should prepare for the painful transition from hunger to famine. I understand that the price of a 50kg bag of rice which sold for N10,000 barely eight years ago now costs about N45,000. For context, Nigeria’s minimum wage is N30,000 for those who are fortunate to be employed. Many more Nigerians are without jobs. And the full impact of the floods have yet to hit the markets while the festive season of Christmas and New Year celebrations when prices hit the rooftops is still two months away. While we are still at it, do not forget that the APC regime of Buhari made a song and dance of its display of pyramids of millions of bags of rice paddies in Abuja in January. Ironically, the price of rice began to inch up after the rice pyramids made their cameo appearance. Some day soon we will discuss this APC regime that came into office through propaganda, ruled by deceit and now is working in overdrive to retain power by hypnotising Nigerians. They want us to deny the evidence before our eyes on how they have thoroughly and wickedly mismanaged our lives.

To expect a regime that presided over two recessions and the likelihood of a third within eight years to have a blueprint to head off the effects of the current flooding would be to live in a fool’s paradise. The evidence that the regime is incapable of any redeeming action is already in full display. Abuja has a ministry for humanitarian affairs but one of its notorious achievements was the use of millions of Naira, some say billions, to feed school pupils who were at home during the Covid-19 national lockdown in 2020. How is this ministry impacting individuals and communities ravaged by floods? Abuja also has the national emergency management agency. Its remit appears to be limited to sprinting to the sites of building collapse in the federal capital territory where they use bare hands to pull heavy concrete rubble to no avail. Where is this agency in this flood disaster? The ministry and the agency may not be the problem. The federal government appeared indifferent to the plight of flood victims given that the most telling thing Abuja has done over the floods was to publicly query and upbraid the affected state governments on their use or misuse of ecological funds. In my neck of the woods we say that you first chase away the hawk and then scold the chick for venturing far from home. No. Not for this federal government. However, the foregoing is not an endorsement of the profligacy of the states and the proclivity of some of the governors to steal their states blind. The issue is that Nigerians need to brace up. The future of the country in terms of food security and general wellbeing will probably never be bleaker unless something gives.

AUTHOR:Ugo Onuoha

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Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.

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