By Adekunle Adekoya

AWAY from the agony of the just-ended strike by ASUU, Nigerians are faced with another existential threat, which is even more life-threatening. Come to think of it, what is not life-threatening in Nigeria, given the way public affairs are managed here?

Is it the transport system, entrenched in the vice-grips of the basest elements of our society; or the environment, which nobody is paying attention to, despite the fact that we have commissioners and hundreds of civil servants manning the environment docket? Is it the food crisis (do our leaders recognise that we have a food crisis), triggered in the main by inability of our farmers to go to farms and cultivate crops that give us food to eat as a result of insecurity?

And now, floods. Angry waters are flowing in any direction they see, perhaps in retaliation for our inaction, or inability to come to terms with our environment. Don’t misread me: floods occur all over the world as a result of one reason or the other.

Even countries with very strong institutions which do not brook any breaching of its laws, where conservation is taken seriously, do experience floods. Germany, France, and Spain last year, were badly hit. Despite the advanced state of their infrastructure, and early warning systems in place, floods still claimed their victims.

But as it always is with us, things were different. There were floods last year, the year before, this year, and there will be floods next year, and I am not talking of flash floods that recede after a few hours. I speak of floods that wash away farmlands and entire communities, throwing life and living into a tailspin. I speak of the kind of floods that wash away cemeteries, leaving buried corpses afloat. Even the dead cannot rest in peace here!

From where I stand, many of our flooding problems are self-inflicted, especially in our towns and cities. Flood plains are natural basins that hold water, especially during the rainy season. In many towns and cities, land speculators and property developers have bought up entire flood plains, filled them up, and quartered the land into plots which are then sold to prospective house owners. These are usually done without the slightest consideration for the waters that are being displaced. The next rainy season then brings the result, and those who inflicted the agony on themselves turn around to blame government. How?

Not that governments are free of blame; not by an inch. This is because most of the regulatory activities governing land use are observed only in the breach, if at all. It is disheartening that state governments will sit idly by and watch land developers build houses on flood plains.

In many instances, drainage channels on master plans have been built over by men of means, the untouchables of our society. In Lagos, it can be seen that the expanse of land from the Mile 12 bridge to Ikorodu is one massive flood plain as many rivers and streams enter the sea in that area. Between Mile 12 and Ikorodu, there are no less than 16 bridges over the streams and rivers that dot the area.

But what do we see? People, hell-bent on living ONLY in that area continue to fill waterways and build houses there. Many of such houses are sinking as we speak, and every year, they fall victim as the water level rises. That is not considering the health problems that come with the mosquito-infested waterways. Toilet development is difficult in swamplands; open defecation is the answer, with its attendant public health issues. How can we continue like this?

I am convinced that the civil servants in charge of the environment and the political appointees in that area are just not doing ANYTHING. If they are, our environment will not be in the parlous state it is in. If they are doing their jobs, they will not sit idly by and watch as misguided citizens continue to dump garbage into the drains whenever it rains.

If they were doing their jobs, they would also not be watching TV while waste water spills onto paved roads from blocked drains, which causes the roads to crack, create potholes which become craters, which slows traffic, and in which traffic robbers operate. If our environment is being monitored, we would anticipate the problems that the activities of our fellow compatriots are incubating, and take steps to nip them in the bud. We must also come to terms with the issue of uncontrolled, or uncontrollable land use. It seems to be key!

I have also said that if ALL OF US, Nigerians, desire a good country, it begins with me, you, and the guys and gals next door. There is no way we’ll have a good country if we carry on the way we are doing. If we continue to build on flood plains, develop container parks on wetlands, tip garbage into the drains, defecate openly anywhere, our country will remain what Donald Trump called it, which got us angry. We must change. If we don’t change, we’re doomed, because our leaders come from among us. 

Now, the Federal Government has taken the state and local governments to task regarding the more than One Trillion Naira budgeted for Ecological issues and disasters in the last three years. Yes, we need answers. If these funds were appropriately utilised on identified ecological problems, perhaps part of our self-inflicted agony will be mitigated. Till next year’s floods!