Now That The Floods Are Here

After a series of warnings and flood alerts by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), Nigerians, especially those residing in flood-prone areas, are bracing up for the challenges posed by flooding.

Before the commencement of this year’s rainy season, specifically in February, the federal ministry of water resources had warned that no fewer than 32 states were at risk of flooding.

Similarly, NEMA, in March, issued a severe flood warning at about the same time NIHSA hinted that no fewer than 178 local government areas across 32 states in the country and the federal capital territory will experience flood disaster. These early warnings by the relevant government agencies were to provide both the national and subnational governments with timely information required to take concrete steps that would mitigate the impact of flooding.

True to the predictions, the floods have started wreaking havoc and as is always the case, lives, houses and properties have either been lost or are at the risk of being lost to flood disasters.

So far, states of Benue, Niger, Kogi, Edo, Plateau, Nasarawa, Oyo, Abuja and a host of others have experienced flood disaster this year, with 22 out of Benue’s 23 local government areas said to be affected. In Niger State, no fewer than 155 communities have been affected by flood and residents are reportedly battling the disaster. In Edo for instance, Governor Godwin Obaseki’s convoy was recently stuck when flood overran RCC junction on Sapele Road in Benin, the state capital. 

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As the rains intensify, it is predicted that more communities in states across the country will experience flooding. Unfortunately, in spite of the early warnings, there is clearly nothing to suggest that national and subnational governments have put in place concrete measures to mitigate the flood disaster.

The rational thing is for governments of states at high risk to be proactive by taking concrete steps, including relocating communities residing in flood-prone areas and importantly, ensure residents are adequately informed on how to prepare for floods. But because we are in Nigeria where anything goes, the government and indeed all those that should take proactive measures could elect not to do so and will get away with it.

Last year, more than 612 people were killed in different flood disasters across the country, even as property worth millions of naira were destroyed and families displaced. The floods also displaced more than 1.4 million people across the country, damaging more than 300,000 houses and 569,000 hectares of farmland, including arable land in Adamawa, Jigawa, Taraba, Kano, Bauchi, Niger, Anambra and Ebonyi States.

We recall that as a response to the 2022 flood disaster which left a devastating impact on Nigerians, the federal government under immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari passed a N819.54 billion supplementary budget for reconstruction of infrastructures damaged by flood across the country. 

Interestingly, the federal government mobilised contractors to sites of these projects and these contractors have commenced work on most of the critical infrastructures including roads, bridges and others that are damaged by the 2022 flood disaster. 

Regrettably, the current National Assembly altered the 2022 supplementary budget and even though they approved President Tinubu’s request to use part of the supplementary budget-N500 billion to be specific, as palliative for subsidy removal and, N70 billion and N35 billion were allocated to the legislators and judiciary respectively, the lawmakers drastically cut down the provisions made for flood control infrastructures across the country to a paltry N185 billion. 

There are media reports that the lawmakers, after slashing the amount to N185 billion, disproportionately re-allocated it in a skewed manner that defies fair distribution.

But before the alteration made by the lawmakers, which followed a request for adjustment to the 2022 supplementary budget by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, some of the contractors had almost completed the work and are waiting to be paid, while others are midway through execution of the projects.

Already, the impacts of tinkering with the supplementary budget are being felt, with widespread concerns that some of these contractors who have since mobilised to site and are working on fixing some of the roads may be left with the option of abandoning sites. 

As a matter of fact, there are reports that some of the contractors who are on the verge of completing the project, on getting wind of reports that the lawmakers had tinkered with the supplementary budget which will ultimately affect money to be paid to them, have abandoned sites.

Here is the danger. By tinkering with the money earmarked for flood control infrastructures, especially roads that have been devastated by flooding, the government is doing a great disservice to not just the contractors who have mobilised to site and have gone far with the work but also the great mass of Nigerians who are the immediate beneficiaries of these infrastructures.

Additionally, the government’s decision, which is a breach of contract in principle, has the tendency to discourage other investors from doing business with it. In simple terms, some investors will lose confidence in the Nigerian government, if they haven’t done so already.

But most importantly, work on these bridges, rural roads and others that were ravaged by flood run the risk of being abandoned in the event the government allows the tinkering with the 2022 supplementary budget to stand.

To avoid this steep descent to the social and economic morass, with all its attendant consequences, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should cancel the decision to touch the money earmarked for infrastructure uplift. Without delay, he should pay the contractors so that they can return to sites and complete these works. This is the only way we can mitigate the impending flood disaster.

NASS’ N40bn Exotic Cars

As should be expected, current efforts by President Bola Tinubu to supposedly retool the Nigerian economy have continued to generate mixed reactions. The president’s subsidy policy has translated into a sharp rise in prices of premium motor spirit with the attendant increase in food prices and transportation cost, all of which further pauperised many Nigerians.

There are genuine fears that should the current trend linger, the nation may kiss the middle-class goodbye as there is a gradual erosion of this set of citizens.

Already, Nigeria’s poverty index is startling. According to 2023 data from the World Poverty Clock, no fewer than 71 million Nigerians are extremely poor. This is even as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) classifies 133 million people as multidimensionally poor. 

The nation is reputed to be among countries with high burden of poverty, with widespread concerns that in the days ahead, more Nigerians will be dragged into the poverty net through the anti-people policies being implemented by the current government.

With high inflation which currently stands at 22.41, decreased direct foreign investment, and an alarming unemployment rate put conservatively at 33 per cent, the situation is indeed, worrisome. 

Of course, the current government and its media handlers have been consistent in urging Nigerians to make sacrifices for better days which they insist are ahead as according to them, the current travails will eventually give way to prosperity for all.

But while Nigerians brace up for the challenges, it appears the National Assembly of 469 lawmakers (109 senators, 360 House of Representatives) is not perturbed and is set to carry on with life as usual.

One pointer to this is the fact as Nigerians continue to agonise over the biting impact of the current reforms, the National Assembly members are set to treat themselves to exotic cars worth N40billion.

Spending a humongous N40billion to buy exotic cars for themselves in view of the challenges the nation is passing through, is insensitive and shows clearly how less the lawmakers care about the country’s current precarious situation. 

The Senator Akpabio-led National  Assembly should reconsider the decision by drastically cutting down the cost as the amount is too much for such an expenditure at a time like this.

Tinubu, Rein In The DSS

What happened at the premises of the Federal High Court in Lagos, on Tuesday, was indeed a show of shame and has proven for yet another time, that the DSS has no regards for both the rule of law and other security operatives. It is despicable that the Service obviously finds nothing wrong with taking illegality to such an embarrassingly worrisome level. Shame has no second name.

When the former CBN governor was suspended, most Nigerians thought he would be made to answer questions for his bad monetary policies, some of which exposed Nigerians to hardship of an unimaginable proportion. Perhaps that was why his suspension and eventual arrest was greeted with wild jubilation in some parts of the country.

Unfortunately, weeks after his suspension, arrest and detention by the DSS, it is increasingly becoming clear that the intent was not necessarily about asking the former CBN governor to account for his wrongs. 

Most Nigerians are beginning to think that the former CBN governor is being persecuted perhaps, for political reasons. If not, how come rather than charge him to court on the grounds of all the infractions reportedly committed during his tenure at the apex bank, the government is prosecuting him only on allegation of arms possession?

No doubt, Emefiele’s tenure as CBN governor is dogged by many controversies. And the list of such is endless. One can either talk about how his poor policies wrecked the economy, the depletion of the nation’s foreign reserves, alleged forex round tripping fraud, his supposed use of huge dollars to defend the naira, the controversial COVID-19 loans, the anchor borrowers programme, or the controversial and highly questionable naira redesign policy. Also, there is the case of his partisan disposition which came to full light when the suspended CBN governor, through proxy, purchased a form to contest for the presidency on the platform of the ruling APC.

In charging Emefiele to court on allegation of illegal arms possession, is the government feigning ignorance of the other issues that characterized his tenure as CBN governor? But then, since the court granted him bail, the DSS clearly overstepped its bounds by going after Emefiele right at the court premises, in the process of which its operatives assaulted an official of the Nigerian Correctional Services.

Perhaps the DSS will have to tell Nigeria why it decided to go after Emefiele at the court premises in violation of an order of a court which ruled that the former CBN governor should be remanded in the Correctional Centre pending the perfection of his bail conditions. 

It is time someone reminds the DSS, in case it has forgotten, that in a constitutional democracy like ours, there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for it or any other organ of the state to flout a valid order of a court. President Tinubu must rein in the DSS and the time to do that is now.