At least 49 people have been killed, and thousands displaced in Nigeria after heavy rains caused flood in the northeast of the country, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Monday.
Three states in the northeast—Jigawa, Adamawa, and Taraba—have been hit hard by the floods, with 41,344 people displaced, according to NEMA spokesperson Manzo Ezekiel.
In 2022, Nigeria experienced its worst flood in more than a decade, which killed over 600 people, displaced around 1.4 million, and destroyed 440,000 hectares of farmland.
“We are just entering the peak of the season, particularly in the northern part of the country, and the situation is very dire,” Ezekiel told Reuters.
The floods have also destroyed farmlands, affecting approximately 693 hectares of agricultural land. Nigeria is battling double-digit inflation, exacerbated by high food prices.
Heavy rains have compounded problems in the farming sector, where farmers are abandoning their farms in the northeast due to repeated attacks by militants.
This year, the government’s flood outlook indicated that 31 of the country’s 36 states are at risk of experiencing “high flood.”
“We also have information about the high tide in the upper countries of the River Niger before Nigeria. All of these are flowing towards Nigeria. We are beginning to see a manifestation of our predictions,” Ezekiel said.
In July, the agency warned of major floods in certain Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Rivers State.
During a workshop in Port Harcourt titled ‘Downscaling of Flood Early Warning Strategies for Early Actions,’ Godwin Tepikor, the director in charge of risk reduction at NEMA, called for support from local government authorities to mitigate the effects of the floods.
The Zonal Director of the Agency, Babatunde Adebiyi, noted that 13 local government areas have been identified, and the agency is working to prepare them for the impending floods. Some of the high-risk LGAs identified include Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Degema, and Ahoada East and West, among others.
Additionally, the agency predicted that eight local government areas in Zamfara State would be affected by moderate flooding during the 2024 rainy season. The agency’s Director-General in Zamfara, Zubaida Umar, listed the eight LGAs as Bugundu, Gummi, Gusau, Bakura, Maradun, Talata Mafara, Shinkafi, and Zurmi.
According to the Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) in the 2024 Annual Flood Outlook,
Expectedly, 31 states with 148 local government areas are within high flood-risk areas, while 35 states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with 249 LGAs, are considered to fall within moderate flood-risk areas. The remaining 377 LGAs are forecasted to be in low flood-risk areas.
