Lessons in resilience from the Maiduguri floods

On Tuesday 10 September 2024, Maiduguri city residents woke up to an unparalleled natural disaster: flooding that severely damaged over half of the city and resulted in the significant loss of lives. The five bridges that connect the city’s two sides overflowed, dividing it into two blocs that were unable to reach out to each other. Almost the entire lower portion of the city remained under water for over two weeks before the flood waters began to recede.

The Alau Dam – situated a few kilometres away from Maiduguri city – collapsed, leading to a flood that killed an estimated 77 people and displaced 300,000. As a city still recovering from the scourge of the Boko Haram insurgency, the flood has further compounded the economic and social challenges that city residents were already facing. The victims were faced with challenges of health care, infrastructural needs, mental health and psychosocial support needs, shelter and food.

In this podcast episode, Chris Jordan speaks to Babakura Bukar about the devastation caused by the floods, the factors contributing to the dam collapse and how such a disaster could be avoided in the future.

> Read more in ACRC’s Maiduguri city report

Babakura Bukar was ACRC's uptake lead for Maiduguri in the foundation phase of the programme.

Chris Jordan is communications and impact manager for the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester, and ACRC's communications manager.

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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer

Sounds: Zapsplat

This podcast presents the views of the speakers featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

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Transcript

Chris Jordan So welcome to this edition of the African Cities Research Consortium podcast. Today, I'm joined by Babakura Bukar from the University of Maiduguri. You may have seen in the news that Maiduguri has recently been hit with a really major flood. Babakura's here to talk through what's happened and where the city goes next. So thank you so much for joining us, Babakura. 

Babakura Bukar Thank you very much for having me. 

Chris Jordan Great to speak to you. So you've been involved in the African Cities project for a little while now. What was your role? 

Babakura Bukar Yeah, in the foundation phase, I was the uptake lead. And earlier, I was a member of the political settlement team. And later, I also participated in the land and connectivity domain. Then recently, we are working on the systematic land titling project. So that is what we are currently, myself and others are doing under the ACRC project. 

Chris Jordan Yeah, so you've been very centrally involved, we published a very long, comprehensive report looking into the city politics, the city systems and domains around Maiduguri earlier in the summer. And then obviously, recently, everything has changed, I guess, with the flood. Can you just explain for people who haven't heard about it, what happened? 

Babakura Bukar Actually, right from the beginning of this month, there are rumours and speculations regarding the increasing level of the water at the Alau Dam, the dam that is located just near Maiduguri, which was actually created some 40 years ago or so for irrigation agricultural activities. But that has remained a buffer for the heavy rain that falls around that area and from other parts of the state and beyond. And recently, there are growing concerns. To that extent, the government or the state set up a committee to look into the continuous complaint about the rising level of the water. And unfortunately, the multistakeholder committee that was set up by the state government went to the dam site, carried out assessment of the dam and the conditions and level of the water. They came back and gave a report, granted interviews with the news media, particularly the secretaries of the state government, that there was no cause for alarm, people should not worry, nothing is happening, there was no problem, and so on and so forth. But even at that, the water has continued to flood certain areas. So initially, people thought those are areas that annually experience floods because of their closeness to the river, some of the houses are built on the plain of the river. So people thought that was the issue. But in the actual sense, there were actually problems associated with the dam. One, the dam is ailing, and at the same time, routine maintenance has not been carried out for many years. And later, when the incident happened, some of the federal authorities came out with facts and figures that they have given a lot of money to the state government to repair the dam. So you can now see one, there was mismanagement of information to the public. People actually have not gotten the right information from the authorities, notwithstanding the fact that a committee was set up to take charge of their responsibility. So people relaxed until on the 10th of the month when the dam collapsed. So even when the dam collapsed, actually no information came to the public, only people saw water. So that has really led to submerging almost every part of the Maiduguri Metropolitan. The Maiduguri Metropolitan has 15 political wards, 11 out of the 15 according to the authorities. That is the spokesman of the governor granted an interview with the press, and he admitted that 11 wards out of the 15 were affected. Six wards out of 12 wards in the area local government were affected, and two out of 12 wards in the area were also affected. So this is the extent of the coverage of the area. Even areas that have never experienced flooding in Maiduguri have been affected this time around. So actually the information, actual information regarding the number of casualties, number of destruction of houses, schools, businesses is still very scanty because there is no structured assessment that was done to arrive at the figure. All the figures the government is mentioning, to me, they are just fabricated. The first instance, on Wednesday, on the 11th, the governor said 1 million people were affected. When he granted the interview to BBC the next day he said about 2 million people were affected. So yesterday, the day before yesterday, he went distributing materials, he was quoting number of houses destroyed, number of people affected. So up until now, no actual assessment is taken. What even some of the authorities are doing, they just go, they say whose house is this? They will ask for the name of the person, they will take the person's account number and move to the next house. They don't even go into the house to see the extent of damage. So it is very difficult for people to survive, and at the same time, this flood has actually exposed the weaknesses of the government in terms of preparedness for climate change and so on and so forth. Because you could see that when the flood came, the state has no single boat to carry out such a rescue operation, apart from military vehicles that they have used. So it took the intervention of Yobe state government, donated a team of experts and a ferry, and at the same time, Adamawa state government donated about six power-based canoes to assist in the search and rescue operation. After flooding, Maiduguri, Jerry and Mafa proceeded to cover all the local government in the northern part, and currently in the northern central part of the state, Dikwa is currently being submerged. As we are talking, I have seen some NGO workers that went there. I saw them and they shared with me some of the pictures of what is happening in the area. So generally, there was negligence. There was this component of climate change. There was mismanagement. There was lack of information to the people to prepare. And even when the incident happened, even the search and rescue operations were actually at the beginning not very good until intervention came from sister states around the northeast zone. But up until now, people have been displaced. Houses are being flooded up until now. More people are sleeping either on the street, there are some appeals on social media. And some are staying in schools, those who cannot go there. Some people are staying in hotels and sharing with family and friends. So generally, this is the situation. This is how the whole incident came, and this is the current situation as we are talking now. 

Chris Jordan Yeah, I mean, really shocking. I saw the photos that were released early on, and it just showed the whole of the city centre just totally underwater, right? And I believe your own house has been damaged. What's been the toll personally that's taken? 

Babakura Bukar In my own case, actually, I received a call from my neighbour around 12:30, midnight, that the water is rushing towards our area and we'd better get up. So then, in my house, we are about 10 or 11, thereabout, though one has travelled. So I woke up everybody to see what we can do, but there was little we can do, because in less than one hour, the water has reached us. Not only that, it has reached up to almost roof level as you must have seen in the picture. Even that picture was taken on Wednesday morning. If you can remember that green roof, it is one of the structures in my house. So we could not carry anything much, because some of the people in my house, even what they are wearing, that's all they carried, they couldn't carry anything because of confusion. And when we are rushing inside the water, my wife was driving, I was also driving, so her car got stuck. So she and our baby were rescued by some youths of the area. Our car as we're talking is still in the water. We could not rescue it. It stopped in the water. So up to now, there is no access to that area, even using any type of machine to actually remove people from the water. And all the four walls of my house have been collapsed. Only two or three structures are standing. Every other thing - the sewage system, the water supply system - everything is totally submerged. And whatever we have, this type of furniture that we are using here, they are all completely damaged. So this is the situation in my house, and the house of almost every area that is affected in 11 wards out of 15 wards of Maiduguri. And that is the situation for most houses beyond those areas. 

Chris Jordan I'm so sorry to hear that. It must be really devastating for you and your family. But also we shouldn't forget that I believe an estimated 30 people have also lost their lives in the flood. 

Babakura Bukar Yeah, that's what the authorities are saying. In actuality, it maybe more than that. 

Chris Jordan So obviously, you guys have done an awful lot of work looking at Maiduguri before the flood. And it's not the easiest place to live. It's not the easiest city for people anyway. Can you just sort of describe what Maiduguri's like as a place before the flood? 

Babakura Bukar Yeah, before the flood, Maiduguri, like you rightly pointed out, actually is not a very easy place to stay because of distance from most of the key cities. Like the state that are having access to the international water, you know, whatever, that you have to move from Lagos to Maiduguri, from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri. We are talking about nearly 2,000 kilometres on bad roads. So the products and services in Maiduguri are generally very expensive. Costs of building, costs of rental, everything is very expensive. And at the same time, there is serious problem of leadership, especially in the recent years. Even this flood, when the flood happened, one of the key government partners called me because there was a discussion I had with him. And at the same time, I gave him a proposal on the need to actually dredge the water channels, expand it, make it navigable during the rainy season, provide flood control, make water available for dry season farming. And at the same time, when you do serious flood control, erosion control measures, you're also at the same time controlling encroachment into the water territory. So I gave him a written proposal. So he asked me to share with him as he could not see the one I gave him earlier. I said, well, this is my situation, so I'll see if I can have time to. So you can see those things are actually missing, the routine. The problem of the water system, water channels in Maiduguri started in the 1994 flood disaster. A lot of debris load had washed into that place, continuous encroachment since that time or even before. And at the same time, you can see no effort was made to even dredge it to any level. So during the dry season, you will realise that at the centre of the river, you see grass growing. So that suggests that land formation is already taking place within the body of the water. And that did not actually mean anything to the authorities to take necessary measures. And you can see the level of capacity in terms of such a rescue operation for an early warning system on ground. Notwithstanding that, we are being seriously confronted by even desertification. Almost everywhere, particularly around Maiduguri, you will see visibly signs of desertification. And you can also see sand dunes. Just leave Maiduguri for 90 something kilometres. You will see sand dunes. You don't have to go too far. When you leave Maiduguri, up to less than 100 kilometres, you see sand dunes, half formed or already forming. So that is how you go until you reach the border with Niger Republic, then you continue with the sand dunes. Then you maintain right you are going up to the Sahara Desert and so on and so forth. So generally, life in Maiduguri has been very difficult for an average person because of high costs of living, high costs of products and services and so on and so forth. So these are just a few things that I can share with you regarding the situation in Maiduguri before the flood. And at the same time, economic activities are not very good. So people are not earning much. Even those who earn, you realise that, let me use what the university people are saying, that "their take home pay cannot take them home". You earn a living but cannot actually use it. If you now say you are giving people 70,000 Naira minimum wage and a bag of rice is 90,000 Naira. So let's assume you buy half a bag at 45,000 Naira. Then with the remaining money, now be enough to buy other things like energy, foodstuff, pay school fees, fill your car if you have, or use commercial transport that is not owned by the public at exorbitant rates and so on and so forth. Now it's being further compounded by the increase in the costs of fuel that has affected almost everything. And potentially we don't have light. You may repair the electric grid system today, you just give it one week, they will come and blow it. They just blew it last week after being repaired for less than a month. Between Yobe, Gombe, Borno, up to Maiduguri after this. So we are perpetually living on our own because the public electricity system cannot be stable enough to provide 24 hours. So you have to either use a small petrol operated generator or diesel operated generator or look for a very expensive solar system, just to light your house and so on. And you know the weather, you cannot not have electricity for you to live a minimum life in Maiduguri. You know the weather is like in Hollywood, there will be extreme cold, extreme heat, extreme water. So you can see the stretching there. Thank you. 

Chris Jordan Yeah, sounds tough. So we're speaking almost two weeks after the floods started. What's the city looking like now? Have the waters receded? Is there clear up and reconstruction starting to happen yet? 

Babakura Bukar Yeah, the water has actually receded in most of the areas affected. Only the ones that have been washed into people's homes, the ones that have been washed into, pumped into the streets are yet to dry. Because they are not much enough to run back to the river or to drain it. Only drain system are either destroyed or stopped with a lot of sand and mud. So there's still stagnant water all over the place. I'm sure that has led to a lot of respiratory problems, malaria. As I'm talking, I'm taking my last malaria injection later, as soon as we finish this interview. And in the house we're at, we have almost 20 of us staying, I think more than ten either had malaria or are undergoing treatment now. So that is the situation across the city and beyond. And certainly, there's also during this rainy season, a lot of grass all over the place, wheat all over the place. So it's breeding ground for malaria. And most of the houses are falling now that the water has receded. By the time the structures start drying off, that is when you will know the actual integrity. So a lot of the structures are now falling after the water has receded. So this is the situation. And if you have been following, you would see that some of the places the government or whichever are visiting, you see a lot of damages have been done. And the damage is still ongoing because you cannot yet ascertain the integrity of the few ones that are standing. So also the public infrastructure, you know, almost all the public infrastructure within the Maiduguri schools, the state government secretariat, the teaching hospital, the specialist hospital, the zoo, high court complex, and so on and so forth, the schools of nursing, Maiduguri Health Technology, all are affected. So it is now onward that you'll actually know, you start knowing actually the level of disruption that is likely going to happen because they are still collapsing. 

Chris Jordan So it sounds like there's a long way for the city to go before it starts to get back on its feet. What do you think needs to happen next as a resident of the city? 

Babakura Bukar Well, the residents of the city will require a lot of support from the government if it is likely going to be possible. A lot of millions of Naira have been donated, so though some are pledged, some are actually being fulfilled. And what is required now is some sincerity in terms of extending support to the people affected. Notwithstanding the fact that some people that have not been affected, they are also going to queue up to receive whatever is being distributed. So what is required from authorities is honesty and actually to have reliable data and accurate data, not the figures they are mentioning. The way they are going, we can't go anywhere unless and until, it won't take you more than a week or two to do a comprehensive survey of the area to arrive at the number of schools affected, number of public institutions, how this number of people are affected, that can be done. So I am expecting that the authorities should be able to do that to arrive at reliable data. So that even if you want to seek support, you can seek support in the provision of knowledge so that you can tender a reliable evidence-based document for people to come in and support. A lot of support is being awaited, but because of lack of data, a lot of opportunities are being missed. So I am just looking forward that the authorities will do that and of course those who can then to assist one another to see how people can come back. 

Chris Jordan And the dam itself that was the cause of the flood, do you know what is going to happen to that? Are they going to fix it? I know it is quite important for agriculture and irrigation in the area, or is it something that is going to have to be abandoned now? 

Babakura Bukar They cannot afford to abandon because the dam itself is not only managed by the state government. It is owned by the Chad Basin Development Authority, and the Chad Basin Development Authority is an authority of the federal government of Nigeria responsible for looking after the whole of the Lake Chad area, and every other water infrastructure, which is an agency under the federal Ministry of Water Resources. So definitely they will not abandon it. It is now on the federal government of Nigeria to ask questions regarding the money that they have given earlier in the year, to do some remedial measures to avert the disaster that has fallen. So they have no option than to go ahead and start working literally as soon as the water level reduces. 

Chris Jordan Babakura, thank you so much for talking to us. I don't want to take any more of your time, please go and get your malaria injection. But all of our thoughts go out to you, to the rest of the residents of Maiduguri. We really, really hope that the city recovers as quickly as possible, and that measures are put in place that a tragedy like this can't happen again. 

Babakura Bukar Thank you very much. That is our hope, wish and prayer too.

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