Postscript by Waziri Adio
In 2012, a great flood literally grounded the country. By the time the unwanted waters receded in November that year, 30 states had been affected, over two million people had been displaced, and close to 400 lives had been lost. Tagged the worst floods in four decades, it was a national emergency, and was rightly treated as such.
Exactly ten years after, we are in the midst of another near-nationwide flood. The impact is as devastating as the last time, even when no one is sure if we have seen the last of it. According to officials, 29 states have been affected by the 2022 floods, close to 100, 000 homes have been submerged, close to 1.5 million people have been displaced and more than 500 lives have been lost.
Apart from episodic statements and interventions by officials, some disturbing but occasional footages, and predictable resort to the blame game, there is hardly anything to signify that a disaster of this proportion is ongoing in Nigeria.
There are no fevered speeches in the parliament—no motions, no point of order on the basis of a matter of urgent national importance, no investigations, no public hearings. The president carries on with his usual detached pace, and those jostling to succeed him have not seen reason to, even if just for campaign brownie points, speak to how to stem these recurring losses to life and property. The response of the civil and business societies is as tame as that of the political society.
Separated by just a decade, the response to the floods in 2012 and 2022 is sadly and remarkably different. In 2012, the President Goodluck Jonathan administration declared an emergency, mobilised Nigerians around the common danger, sought international help and set up a relief fund. Ten years after, the unfolding disaster is near invisible, even when it is promising to be more devastating than the last major flood. We may yet see a sudden flush of official response, and let’s hope it will not be a little too late.
Beyond the different reactions, one very disturbing fact is that it was as if we learned nothing from the 2012 episode. George Santayana famously said that “those who can’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” There is hardly anything to suggest that we took advantage of what happened a decade earlier to minimise the impact of the current flood or to handle emergency response better.
The question that should engage and worry all of us is how prepared are we for the next disaster, natural or man-made.
Yes, we have a phalanx of agencies for disaster preparedness and response. We even have a whole ministry now on humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development. But preparing for and responding to emergency go beyond distributing relief materials and handouts, as important as those may be to those in need. They also go beyond providing regular warnings and updates, as important as those too are.
Where we need to up our game is in three areas. The first is more robust coordination, and clear lines of responsibilities. Disasters do not always obey territorial markings, and most times the proactive and reactive work not only crosses boundaries but are also beyond the scope of subnational authorities.
The second is putting in place policies and interventions to prevent or minimise disasters. Noah did not start building his Ark on the day of the flood. This stream of work requires a lot of rigour and strategic thinking and planning. The huge financial outlay may be difficult to justify to politicians and their constituents because the impact can only be measured in terms of the danger or the disaster that has been avoided. This is the realm of the counter-factual, and it is usually a bit too remote and too abstract for many people. But that is the domain of real leadership: seeing beyond the apparent, and mobilising men and materials for needed change.
The third workstream is what we do when disasters, whether avoidable or unavoidable, strike. How prepared are we to come to the aid of those in distress, what is our response speed, what is our success rate, and how do we continue to improve on all these important metrics? This bit is what separates the societies that take themselves seriously and put a high value on human life from those that do not.
It is not by accident that in such societies the fire service is at the heart of the communities, that emergency lanes are reserved for fire trucks and ambulances (not VIPs), that those in charge of disaster prevention and emergency response are adequately resourced, and that no effort is spared to reach and save citizens (and even pets and animals) in distress. These are societies designed with the least privileged and the most vulnerable in mind.
We need a John Rawls’ “Veil of ignorance” approach to not just how we think about disaster management and emergency response but also to how we re-envision our society. Basically, Rawls’ take is that if there is no certainty that you will end up as privileged or as vulnerable, you default to making adequate provision for the vulnerable.
One explanation for the flippant way we handle disasters is our luck with natural hazards like earthquakes, hurricanes and the like. But with the change in weather patterns across the globe, we are all increasingly vulnerable. Already, we are all witnesses to heavier than usual rains. The heavy rains across the country are implicated in the ongoing flood, apart from the release of water from Lagdo Dam in Cameroon. The earlier we are prepared to take care of the most vulnerable in an emergency, the better for all of us. The most vulnerable could be any of us, no matter our stations in life.
Originally published at Thisday