The History Of Flood

I'm not going to cite faraway examples and conditions in relation to this situation in my country, which has been ongoing for a very long time and keeps repeating itself every now and then. In fact, whenever one wants to refer to it, there's no need to rack the brain to get the actual date the historical event occurred, because it occurred 50 years ago, 30 years ago, 10 years ago, and even yesterday.

In the city I currently live in, I have known it for a long time, and I remember a particular time when I was in school—a terrible flood occurred that rendered a lot of people homeless. Even our church then—the premises were flooded so badly that they constructed a bridge within the premises to cross to the auditorium, which was built on a very high DPC. Many houses in the city were soaked in water. As for the neighbouring villages, which were very prone to flooding—their case was unbelievable!

That was my first time experiencing what a flood is, because before then, I had only heard about floods in the news. That one was a very terrible incident, and according to what trended then, the Cameroonian government opened their dam, and that was what caused the flood.

After about three years, another terrible flood happened—although not as intense as the first one I witnessed—but it still rendered people homeless, to the extent that the university in the town was closed down because water took over the entire premises.

These aside, we’ve seen different places swallowed by flood whenever the said dams are opened, and it keeps happening like that.

Must this history keep repeating itself? I ask this question every time I hear an announcement that flood is coming or that it has already happened. Why must we keep allowing flood to take lives and displace livelihoods?

I know you want to say that flood is a natural disaster and can't be controlled? That’s a lie—it can be controlled to a good extent. Most of the time, the ones that happen terribly in Nigeria are as a result of the opening of dams in neighbouring countries.

Do you also know that the government spends unimaginably huge amounts of money to prepare for floods by organising refugee camps to harbour the affected when it happens? Yes, whenever the forecasters predict that flood is going to happen, the government swings into action to organise refugee camps and provide all necessary items for the period. And this happens almost every year!

Why can't they pull up such funds and find a way to permanently solve the situation? Another channel could be constructed to direct the excess water to another sector rather than allowing it to flow into living areas.

The only ones I know that can’t be controlled are the ones that happen naturally—say, through heavy rainfall whereby water bodies are full and begin to overflow.

The city I live in currently has a record where the history of flood repeats itself regularly, and nothing has been done about it. They’ve accepted their fate.

Thanks for reading.

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This is my entry to Week 171, Edition 02 of the Weekly Featured contest in Hive Learners Community