THE GUARDIAN
Chukwudi Onyechefule had invested N1 million in his poultry business early 2022. It was his biggest ‘break’ in poultry farming. With things looking up, the Yenagoa farmer was all set to count millions by Christmas of 2022.
By June, his 1,000-bird investment had fully matured. He was sure the god of fortunes had smiled on him. Then it started to rain in the last quarter. It continued nonstop in Bayelsa. After nine days of heavy downpour, it registered it was not just the seasonal rainfall but something more sinister. Days later and before his eyes, more than half of his poultry got washed away by the menacing flood. When the coast cleared and the bleak Christmas came, Onyechefule had less than 50 birds to market to a beleaguered community.
“The birds that are alive are few,” he said wearily. “They were sold for between N3, 000 and N5, 000 to a community that does not even have money to spend. Each of the chickens would have been sold for between N10, 000 and N12, 000, without the flooding disaster,” Onyechefule said.
He recalled that the impacts of the 2022 flooding in Yenagoa were extensive, but nothing has changed in terms of measures to mitigate future occurrences.
Sadly, his feeling is mutual across residents of Yenagoa, including Swali, Opolo, Tombia, Akenfa and Agudama, and across other 32 states that were devastated beyond measure in the 2022 flood of fury. Residents, who spoke with The Guardian, said besides economic losses, they are also suffering health complications like diarrhoea, malaria, cough and measles.
Despite commitments made by the state governments, findings across the communities showed that not much has changed in terms of fortunes of the survivors. Most worrisome is how the communities are going to cope with another prediction of heavy rainfall in 2023.
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Although, the 2022 flood disaster, coupled with its associated hazards, was meant to be a wake-up call for emergency responders, development agencies, and partners to work assiduously to avert a repeat, there seems to be no serious effort to avert the danger.
Apart from sensitising residents on early warning signals released yearly by the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NiMET), the states, as major casualties are in limbo of any concrete flood resilience mechanism.
According to the Federal Government data, over 665 people were killed and 3,181 injured as a result of the 2022 floods. On the aggregate, Nigeria lost $6.68 billion, in which several lives and properties were lost in about 33 states, while many affected communities are yet to recover from impacts of the devastating incident.
Findings on the impacts of the 2022 flooding on the residents of Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, show that over 71 to 77 per cent of residents were affected through building collapse, household items lost, livestock destroyed and many others.
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