FLOOD, a man-made disaster
It is my conviction that flood disaster management has been given a superficial approach in Nigeria, as the issue concerns less previlaged people. Specifically, the devastating effect of flooding hit mostly women and children at the lower income strata. If you look at settlement pattern of the front line States mostly hit by such disasters, you will find out that the richer communities live uphill, while poorer people tend to be pulled towards settlements at the fringes of towns where land is cheaper, and often dangerously close to riverbanks or water ways. Other factors that defines these settlement patterns also have to do with the desire of fishermen and farmers to move close to rivers and farmlands. But these strategic desires, good as they seemed, had turned into disasters. The raining season of 2012 came with countless horror of instant deaths due to drowning by flood waters, road wash always, submerged houses, crops and whole farmlands in some cases. The devastations wer...