Flooding in 27 of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital has affected half a million people, including 100,000 displaced and more than 500 injured, Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency said. The disaster has also destroyed thousands of hectares of farmland, fueling fears of food supply disruptions in Africa’s most populous country. Since 2012, “it [the flood-related deaths] it’s the highest we’ve ever had,” said Manzo Ezekiel, a spokesman for the disaster management agency. Nigeria experiences floods every year, often as a result of non-implementation of environmental guidelines and inadequate infrastructure. Authorities blame this year’s flooding on water overflowing from local rivers, unusual rainfall and the release of excess water from the Lagdo dam in Cameroon’s neighboring northern region. Nigeria’s Hydrological Services Agency predicted more flooding in 2022 than last year due to “excessive rainfall and contributions from external flows”, such as the dam in Cameroon. On Monday, Nigeria’s disaster management agency warned more than a dozen states of “severe consequences” in the coming weeks as two of the country’s dams began to overflow. “I want to advise all governments of frontline states to evacuate communities at risk of flooding, identify safe higher ground for evacuation of people and prepare adequate stocks of food and non-food items,” said the head of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management . Agency, Mustapha Habib Ahmed. In northwestern Jigawa state, flooding has killed more than 20 people in the past week, Yusuf Sani Babura, head of Jigawa state’s emergency management agency, told the AP. The state has recorded 91 flood deaths this year – more than any state in the country. “We are facing catastrophic floods beyond our control,” Babura said. “We tried our best and we couldn’t stop it.” The floods have also destroyed crops, mainly in Nigeria’s northern region, which produces much of what the country eats, raising concerns that it could further affect food supplies already disrupted by armed conflict in the country’s northwest and central regions. . Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. In Benue State, Aondongu Kwagh-bee said he recently visited his rice farm and found that a heavy rainfall had “wiped everything away”. “Right now, there’s nothing there. It’s just filled with sand and the rice has been washed away,” said the 30-year-old. Akintunde Babatunde, an Abuja-based climate analyst, said the main cause of Nigeria’s annual flooding problem was poor road infrastructure, drainage and waste disposal. “Unusual rainfall is evidence of climate change,” he said.
