The World Meteorological Organisation has predicted that the next five years will be very hot and one of the years will be the hottest in history exceeding 2.0▪︎c. This will be very consequential for ice and glacier in the future.

Year after year, flooding remains one biggest challenge to the country not just for the spectacle but for what it represents, where the climate crisis is headed, who is at the centre of it and what stories are being told through preparation, responses and management. This is particularly affirming with citizens that are no longer waiting for the unfulfilled promises of response but are showing up at the national stage with their narratives.

Now the issue of climate change is meeting Nigeria where we are with little insight and something that will make us to think. Nations dont just happen, it is an outcome of serious thinking, vision, clarity of thought and hard work. That is the reason till tomorrow, no Israeli citizen would sell out no matter the cost because everyone knows what is required to keep the country going because every Israeli MDAs and by implications the Israeli authorities response to citizens challenges absolutely and adequately.

The Mokwa issue where more than 20 people were said to have lost their lives again is a test case whether our response capacity know what backward countries should know and do if they must prepare for the impending threat of climate change. The era of predictions and warnings including speeches that vulnerable communities can’t adequately comprehend nor understand the impact of the theories marshalled out in those predictions and warnings shows that the decay continues. Past community failures of disaster response agencies may be the unusual trend, but now, remorse and penitance should wheel these response agencies to the corridor of empathy.

With considerable justification like the mokwa episode, Nigeria need some noble ideas to deal with the issue of flooding because people are subjects and not just passive objects of development. It is very easy to take preparation and planning for granted but events of the past years shows that it is important to nurture them in every flooding cycle. 2012 and other important landmark events of flooding should provoke deep introspection but has turned out to be a jamboree of lavish waste of public funds. In places where there is order, the response agencies are forward thinking about preventing the catastrophic effects of flooding on the citizens.

Such care and empathy stir up citizens soul for the simple fact that citizens are involved and taken seriously.
Every year in Nigeria, flooding becomes worrisome and dismissive events that reduce the lives of countless Nigerians to a mere blemish of our national sensational lense of planning and execution leading to aesthetic embarrassment and irritation.

What has invariably become clear over the years is that public faith in predictions and responses of agencies as emergency management rite of passage for Nigerian citizens in disaster management and a key pillar for saving lives and livelihoods in the country has been seriously disfigured. The response agencies have to work to regain the trust of Nigerians because they are operating from years of forced penitance without the fear of God and Nigerians are watching the watchers and reviewing the reviewers.

AIR VICE MARSHAL (RTD ) AKUGBE IYAMU
PRESIDENT ASSOCIATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE PRACTITIONERS.

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