June 01, (THEWILL) – The search for bodies continues along the banks of River Niger, where rescue workers have pulled at least 115 people from the waters that submerged Mokwa, a market town in Niger State. The death toll from Thursday’s flooding keeps rising, with officials warning that more victims remain missing after torrential rains turned the commercial hub into a watery grave.
This latest tragedy comes barely eight months after more than 1,200 people were killed and 1.2 million displaced in at least 31 out of Nigeria’s 36 states in 2024, making it one of the country’s worst floods in decades. The pattern has become grimly predictable: heavy rains arrive, drainage systems fail, communities drown and the government promises action that rarely comes.
The Mokwa disaster began when floods submerged the market town following torrential rains, turning streets into rivers and sweeping away homes with families still inside. The scale of destruction in this single town reflects a broader crisis that has made Nigeria one of the world’s most flood-prone nations, where the annual rainy season has become synonymous with mass casualties.
What makes these deaths particularly tragic and painful is their preventable nature. Nigerian authorities have known for years that the country’s drainage infrastructure cannot handle heavy rainfall, yet systematic improvements remain absent. The same towns flood year after year, the same warnings go unheeded and the same communities bear the deadly consequences of government inaction. What a shame!
The 2024 flooding season alone demonstrated the scope of this failure. Over 300 people died and 1.2 million were affected by floods in 33 states, whilst aid agencies reported that populations in Nigeria were dealing with the worst floods in 30 years. These were not sudden, unpredictable disasters but the culmination of decades of poor urban planning and neglected infrastructure.
The human cost extends far beyond the immediate death toll. In September 2024, flooding in Borno State was so severe that at least 274 inmates escaped from a prison following heavy flooding when the prison walls collapsed. In Niger State alone, 16,559 individuals in 2,337 households were affected by floods in 18 local government areas, illustrating how entire communities remain vulnerable to predictable weather patterns.
Nigeria’s flood problem is fundamentally a governance problem. The country possesses meteorological agencies that can predict severe weather, but those in government either do not care or lack the will and capacity to act on their warnings. I have come to accept this very difficult and shocking notion that human life in this country is easily expendable.
Urban drainage systems remain blocked or inadequate, dam maintenance is irregular, and emergency response coordination between federal and state agencies is often chaotic. Corruption and weak state institutions have deeply hurt us.
The economic impact of these floods compounds the human tragedy. Nigeria’s agricultural sector, which employs millions of people, suffers massive crop losses each flooding season. Markets like Mokwa, which serve as commercial hubs for surrounding rural areas, are destroyed just when farmers need them most. The cycle of destruction and rebuilding consumes resources that could have been invested in prevention.
International aid agencies have repeatedly warned about Nigeria’s flood vulnerability. The International Rescue Committee noted that floods would exacerbate food insecurity in the region with the destruction of farmland and significant crop losses. Yet these warnings, like domestic meteorological predictions, fail to translate into concrete preparation measures.
The pattern is visible across West Africa, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and hundreds killed by what experts call the worst floods in 30 years. However, Nigeria’s losses consistently exceed those of neighbouring countries, pointing to specific failures in disaster preparedness and infrastructure maintenance and upgrade.
Early warning systems exist but remain disconnected from response mechanisms. The Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency issues flood predictions, yet communities receive little advance preparation support. Evacuation plans are rare, temporary shelters inadequate and emergency supplies often arrive too late to prevent deaths.
The Mokwa tragedy should mark a turning point, but history suggests otherwise. Previous mass casualty floods have prompted temporary government attention followed by business-as-usual neglect. Ministers and governors make speeches, committees are formed, funds are allocated on paper and then the next rainy season arrives with the same deadly results.
What Nigeria needs is sustained investment in flood prevention infrastructure, not just post-disaster emergency response. This means maintaining drainage systems, upgrading dam safety protocols, improving early warning communication and implementing strict urban planning standards that account for flood risk.
The human stories emerging from Mokwa mirror those from countless previous floods: families separated by rushing water, homes destroyed in minutes, livelihoods wiped out, and communities left to rebuild without adequate support. These stories repeat because the underlying causes remain unaddressed.
Nigeria cannot continue to treat annual flooding like an unpredictable natural disaster when it is largely a man-made crisis rooted in infrastructure neglect and planning failures. The death toll in Mokwa will eventually be confirmed, more bodies will be recovered, and officials will promise that such tragedies will not happen again.
But without fundamental changes to how Nigeria prepares for predictable weather patterns, the 2025 rainy season will likely produce another round of preventable deaths. The choice facing Nigerian authorities is clear: invest in flood prevention now or continue counting bodies after each storm. The people of Mokwa and countless other vulnerable communities deserve better than empty promises delivered over their graves.
