By Idowu Abdullahi
Each rainy season, torrents of floodwaters crash into Nigerian communities, swallowing homes, livelihoods, and dreams. From Lagos to Niger, Ogun to Ondo, Rivers to Yobe, families fight a losing battle against waters that rise like a curse—choking the vulnerable, crippling economies, and leaving a trail of despair.
When the rain began on the evening of August 3, 2025, Mrs. Abdulrazaq Suliat never imagined her family’s world would be washed away before dawn.
What started as a drizzle soon swelled into raging streams that invaded her Ikorodu home in Lagos, trapping her family in the dark. For seven relentless hours, she fought to keep her children alive with nothing but the glow of a phone’s torchlight.
> “By midnight, the water had risen above our beds,” she recalled, her voice heavy with grief. “My nine-year-old woke up screaming because the water splashed into his eyes. We tried blocking the windows, but it was too late. The flood forced its way in. We had no choice but to carry our children on our shoulders and wade out into the water.”
Today, her son’s bloodshot eyes remain an aching reminder of that desperate night.
Fragile Lives, Shattered Dignity
For 78-year-old Adaeze, survival was no less harrowing. Too frail to move, she sat helplessly as brown waters climbed from her knees to her waist. Her son waded through chest-high water to rescue her.
“If I wasn’t around, Mama would have died,” Ugochukwu, her son, told PUNCH Healthwise. “The water reached the window level. The solar panels were already soaked. If I hadn’t switched things off, electrocution would have finished us before the water did.”
Adaeze’s silence since that night is telling—her neighbours say she now stares blankly, as though her spirit was left behind in the flood.
Years of Labour Washed Away
In Magboro, Ogun State, the flood crushed not just homes but also livelihoods. Catfish farmer, Olakunmi Ibrahim, lost his entire stock—an investment worth over ₦4 million.
“I cried like a child,” he said. “The flood carried my ponds like paper. The borrowed money I used to build them is gone. My creditors are still calling me.”
His story mirrors the agony of thousands across Nigeria who lose not only possessions but their dignity and lifelines with every rainy season.
A History Written in Tears
Flooding in Nigeria is not new, but its ferocity grows deadlier each year.
In 2012, floods killed 363 people, injured nearly 6,000, and displaced 3.8 million, in what NEMA called the worst disaster in four decades.
In 2022, the World Economic Forum reported over 600 deaths and 1.3 million displaced in floods across the country.
By August 2025, 191 people had died already, with Niger State alone accounting for 163 lives lost.
These tragedies turn the rainy season from a season of renewal into one of dread.
Mokwa: A Community Buried in Sorrow
Perhaps nowhere has the devastation been more heart-wrenching this year than Mokwa, Niger State, where over 160 corpses were recovered after floods swallowed entire households in May.
For days, families dug through sand and debris to retrieve decomposed bodies. The stench of death now hangs heavy in the air, with health experts warning of looming outbreaks of cholera, typhoid, and diarrhoea.
> “Flooding doesn’t end with drowning,” warned Prof. Tanimola Akande, a public health expert. “Decomposing corpses contaminate water sources, triggering epidemics long after the waters recede.”
In Lagos and Ogun, the August flood brought the country’s commercial hub to its knees. Viral images under the hashtag #LagosFlood showed submerged cars, ruined markets, and children wading through chest-high waters.
At Redemption City in Mowe, worshippers and residents abandoned cars and resorted to canoes for movement as floodwaters stranded thousands during the RCCG convention.
Warnings of Worse to Come
The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NiHSA) has warned that 198 local governments across 30 states are at risk of severe flooding between August and September 2025.
“Residents should brace for flash flooding,” Lagos Environment Commissioner Tokunbo Wahab cautioned, blaming clogged waterways for the devastation.
The annual flood crisis is no longer just a natural disaster—it is a man-made tragedy of government inaction, poor planning, and environmental neglect.
For Suliat in Lagos, Adaeze in Rivers, and Ibrahim in Ogun, floods are not statistics. They are nights of terror, years of labour gone, children’s futures submerged, and fragile hopes washed away.
And as the skies darken once more, Nigerians brace for the same nightmare that returns every year—merciless, unrelenting, and unanswered.
PIONEER NEWS 