FLOODING IN NIGERIA: THE ACTIVITIES OF NEMA AND SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Flooding is the overflow of water overwhelming normal flow paths or patterns on its naturally defined course/channel with attendant effects on the environment and human population so located. Flooding has orchestrated population relocation, loss of livelihood, deaths, destruction of biodiversity and arable lands, destabilization of urban infrastructure, and other devastations after its occurrence. Addressing these resultant effects of flooding in Nigeria gave birth to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) as an emergency response agency to provide necessary relief as first aid. The key functions of NEMA include formulating policies relating to disaster management, monitoring the state of preparedness against disaster challenges, and provision of relief materials to disaster victims in Nigeria amongst others. A cursory look at these functions vis-à-vis the activities of NEMA and ancillary disaster response departments has offered more worries than solutions; suggesting the need to ascertain the justification of NEMA's existence or otherwise. The findings reveal that in the absence of adequate control/prevention strategies, Nigeria succumbs to the damages of flooding, resorting to the disbursement of relief items as its main response, thereby relegating proactive control/preventive measures that are long-term solutions. The recommendation therefore, is to expand NEMA’s statutory functions to accommodate physical developments aimed at minimizing flooding occurrences such as dams, embankments, channelization, and shoreline preservation amongst others; as against allowing it to occur perennially with the mindset being on the provision and distribution of relief materials to victims, which cannot assuage the dead and loss of properties. Hence, this paper proposed the expansion of NEMA functions and activities to accommodate prevention/control measures to create a new Agency called the National Emergency Management and Development Agency (NEMDA) for sustainable environmental management