Heavy rains caused the country’s two largest rivers to swell, flooding large areas around the confluence of the Niger and Benue Rivers in the center of the country.
Umar Mahmud, Red Cross disaster management officer in Kogi, said there were
“more than 60,000 people displaced”.
“The situation is very bad today, because the Niger River is in flood,”
added Mr. Mahmud, specifying that at least 60,000 hectares of agricultural land had been destroyed.
The state Commissioner for Information, Kingsley Femi Fanwo, who appealed to the national authorities for help, stressed that the IDP camps were
“We cannot cope with the rising waters,” he continued.
He estimated that more than a million people lived in the affected areas.
The large-scale flooding started about a month ago and no deaths have been reported so far. They hit densely populated areas, including parts of the state capital, Lokoja.
One of the worst-affected districts is Ibaji, where more than three-quarters of the land has been flooded, Fanwo said.
Floods often occur in Nigeria during the rainy season, from May to November, but there are fears that the damage in Kogi could surpass that of 2022, when Nigeria experienced its worst floods in a decade, killing more than 500 people and 1 .4 million displaced.
“There are growing fears that these could be the worst floods in the state’s history as the water continues to rise every day”
Mr. Fanwo said.
Sandra Musa of emergency management agency SEMA warned that flooding could lead to food shortages and cholera outbreaks, and urged residents to leave.
“People are devastated,”
she said, expressing concern about the livelihoods of residents already struggling with Nigeria’s worst economic crisis in a generation.
In September, massive floods hit the city of Maiduguri, capital of Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, killing at least 37 people. Other northern states (Sokoto, Bauchi, Zamfara…) have also been severely affected.
The Nigerian Humanitarian Fund has released $6 million to help flood victims, while the UN announced an additional $5 million in aid.