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Water residues on the road splatter on the tricycle’s tyres, conveying this reporter to Lagos Street to connect to the ever-busy Monday Market in Maiduguri. To the right and left are closed shops, puddles, and cars sunk into the ground, a sight signifying a relieving start to sorrowful days.
The disarray witnessed in the city is not the aftermath of a terrorist attack as in previous decades but scenes of recovery from unprecedented flooding after the Alau Dam, a reservoir housing 112 million cubic metres of water, collapsed on September 10, 2024. According to government figures, as of Sept. 19, 2024, the nine-day disaster led to 37 deaths, about two million residents displaced, and approximately N27 billion worth of property loss.
Now that the worst is over, as they would assume, many residents spread their beds and furniture like sacrifices to the sun. Some who could not locate their properties looked in despair, fearing their new realities.
Mohammed Babagana sat in front of his closed shop, where he used to sell spare parts for tricycles and motorcycles for over 20 years. He watches his 12-year-old son, Hussein, fish in the waters on the street.
“It pains me to think about the losses incurred,” he said, wearing a forlorn look while recounting his losses. “Honestly, we haven’t experienced floods of such intensity in the past. Suppose authorities warned me about an impending flood. I wouldn’t leave anything behind; I’d take as much as possible,” he added.
His friend, Abdullahi Dahiru, 50, sells kitchen utensils on another street nearby but hasn’t been able to access his shop yet. He came to visit Mohammed when DUBAWA encountered him.
“If I were informed that a flood of such significant magnitude was coming, I would pack the essential items that would benefit me and my family. I would then move to a safer location where flooding wouldn’t be an issue,” he said.
On Sept. 6, 2024, Bukar Tijani –the Borno state government’s secretary– had the chance to notify residents ahead when he led a delegation of top-ranking government officials to assess the impact of water overflow at Alau Dam. Instead, he reassured residents (archived) in Maiduguri that the city was not threatened. He revealed that the state government is partnering with the Chad Basin Development Authority to prevent such a disaster.
“There have been a lot of worries and speculations that the whole Dam has broken down, but the dam has not. We have discussed and seen what to do, but the rumour of Maiduguri being flooded is not there,” he said.
Credible media outlets published the report here, here, and here. It also generated massive reactions on Facebook here (archived), here (archived), here (archived), and here (archived). DUBAWA could not independently confirm how many approximately 1.1 million residents got the message, but it was widely reported by media platforms and circulated on social media.
Days after allaying his friends’ fears since he heard the statement on NTA Maiduguri radio, Muktar Yusuf now squats with them after becoming a homeless victim of the flood. “Nothing in my house is usable at this point,” he said.
“The loss I experienced was more hurtful because I was even the main person who told my friends that the government had gone there and made the statement. It would have been another thing if they warned us and we didn’t move,” he said.
Patience Malik, a salesperson selling building materials, said her boss’ friend showed him Mr Tijani’s video, which calmed him from packing his properties. “We felt more at ease when we saw the post on Facebook because we saw that he went there and there was no cause for alarm. We felt no need to worry,” she said.
Five days later, the flood damaged goods worth millions at her boss’ two shops. “[The flood] affected many people, including my boss’ businesses. Some people have lost their houses, businesses and properties in millions. Customers are not even available to buy our goods that are not yet damaged,” she said.
Muhammad Alkali, the media and publicity coordinator at the Green Plantation and Environmental Action Initiative (GPEAI) in Maiduguri, said many organisations connected the dam’s eventual collapse and the subsequent disaster to the frequent rainfall that increased the reservoir’s storage beyond the capacity designed over 40 years ago, indicating the contribution of climate change in the flood.
He said, “The flood is a climate change-related disaster because the Alau dam cannot accommodate the water it was designed to hold in the last four decades. Many people still don’t believe in the effects of climate change, and misinformation is a great challenge that is causing loss of lives and properties in climate change-related disasters.”
The genesis
Residents in the Alau community, where the dam is situated, accused the state government of neglecting their cries for help while the dam could still be salvaged. Mohammed Musa, a 42-year-old tricycle driver who has lived at the settlement near the dam at Laujeri, Jere LGA, for more than 15 years, revealed that the engineers sand-filled certain parts of the waterside some years ago to facilitate the dam’s rehabilitation.
“We rely on [the dam] for drinking water and irrigation to grow crops like tomatoes, okra and onions,” he said. “Engineers came to construct a slope to help manage the water flow, reducing its speed so it wouldn’t go above the bridge when they wanted to start repairing the dam.”
Featured illustration: Alau Dam pre-sandfilling
However, the engineers did not proceed with the rehabilitation as expected till the situation worsened.
“These cracks have been there for about two years now. When the engineers came to inspect it, they acknowledged the issue and promised to fix it. They even put some bricks around the area to minimise potential dangers,” Mohammed said. Despite their initial visits and promises, they did not return to fix it till the dam’s collapse.
Illustration showing Alau Dam months after parts were sand-filled. Designed by Phillip Anjorin
Nature’s fury on a negligent government
We captured the dam’s last intact appearance on Aug. 31, 2022, using Wayback Imagery, a digital archive of the world imagery base map.
Since then, it steadily declined until its final collapse on Sept. 10, 2024.
GovSpend, a civic tech platform tracking data on federal government expenditures, revealed that the Chad Basin Development Authority (CHBDA) received more than N205 million from the government to rehabilitate the dam during the stated period. The agency paid the contractor N17,189,756.16 on Nov. 13, 2022, for road resurfacing within the Alau Dam premises, then N23,433,216.29 on June 4, 2023, to construct Coffer Dam.
On Sept. 20, 2023, the agency paid N9,771,283.60 as 7.5% value-added tax (VAT) to the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), N6,514,189.06 as withholding tax (WHT) and N122,466,754.53 as final payment to Hammal and Partner Ltd, the contractor, for the dam’s rehabilitation. On July 29, 2024, the agency paid N26,087,373.23 to Bulgari Global Link Nig. Ltd to rehabilitate the dam.
Although the agency’s website described Abba Garba as the board of directors chairman, he disclosed that he’s the Chief Information Officer and will contact the Chief Executive Officer the following day, as he was mourning a loss when we called on Sept. 24, 2024. As of when this report is filed, he’s yet to give feedback.
Climate misinformation, a global challenge
Experts and stakeholders have blamed the dearth of accurate information and poor communication approaches as a bane to proactive measures against climate change-related disasters globally, a phenomemon that recurred during the Maiduguri flood.
About 107 deaths were recorded across three cities in the United States after Hurricane Harvey struck in 2017, and misinformation made many residents reluctant to take necessary precautions, resulting in substantial property damage and loss of life. Similarly, the devastating wildfires in Australia in 2020, which claimed about 445 lives, endured narratives that downplayed the connection between climate change and wildfire frequency, which complicated public understanding and response efforts. These issues also contributed to the casualties and property losses experienced during the Maharashtra flood disaster that claimed more than 209 lives in 2021.
These poor communication approaches hinder disaster assessment and management. For instance, more than 750 lives were lost during the 2019 Cyclone Idai in Mozambique due to “profound negligence,” particularly in the rural areas. Also, the Lagos state government’s then-special adviser on drainage and water resources, Joe Igbokwe, took responsibility through an open apology after falsely allaying residents’ fears before the flood disaster in 2020.
Tolulope Gbenro, an environmental, social and governance (ESG) consultant at the Youth Sustainable Development Network (YSDN), opined that trust-driven realistic communication about climate change can aid disaster preparedness.
She said, “There is a thin line between misinformation and trying to allay citizens’ worries because every leader and government want its citizens to trust them and make them feel like they [the government] have everything under control.”
Instead of creating panic with dire predictions about potential disasters such as flooding, Ms Tolulope urged the government to engage community leaders and citizens using a constructive approach when presenting data.
Recommendations
Dorothy Bassey, the immediate past president of the Nigerian Environmental Society (NES), emphasises the urgent need for the government at all levels to implement effective risk assessment strategies in disaster-prone areas. She said, “We must map out high-risk zones and utilise existing data for planning.”
Ms Bassey identified negligence to valuable data as a systemic issue complicating disaster risk. “Nigeria has enough data, but double disasters will always happen when we do not use the data for planning or risk assessment.”
Continuous information disseminated in accessible language will ensure all communities understand the implications of ignoring disaster alarms. “People at the grassroots are the most vulnerable,” she said. “The elites may know about it and do their bits, but what about the majority?”
She also called for community engagement through initiatives like environmental marshals, which she introduced while in office, to educate residents on sustainable practices and emergency preparedness drills. “We are at a crisis stage now,” she warns, urging proactive measures to mitigate future disasters.
