By Israel Adebiyi

In the days when the forest still spoke and rivers still held secrets, there was a tale the elders told of a stubborn village. This village, they said, was warned by the river goddess that heavy rains were coming. “Move to higher ground,” she whispered through the winds. But the people, confident in their mud huts and ancestral trees, scoffed. The rains came, and so did the water. Not as a blessing, but as a grave. By morning, the village was no more—only silence and soaked soil remained.

This is no longer folklore. This is Mokwa.

At the last count, over 200 lifeless bodies have been pulled from the fury of floodwaters in Mokwa Local Government Area of Niger State. Children, women, men—entire households swallowed by what should have been a predictable, preventable disaster. Homes have turned to ruins, schools into swamps, and churches into makeshift morgues. Thousands are now displaced, staring into an uncertain future, and the numbers—like the waters—keep rising.

Year after year, we watch this horror movie unfold, always with fresh cast members and a bloodier script. Yet, nothing seems to change.

The tragedy of Mokwa is not just about water. It is a portrait of systemic rot—of repeated failure across every level of governance. It is the failure of residents who, either out of ignorance or fatalistic resignation, ignore flood alerts. It is the failure of state governments who do not even bother to draw evacuation maps, build retention basins, or construct climate-resilient housing. It is the unforgivable failure of the federal government, which seems to think emergency response begins after the bodies begin to rot.

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To make matters worse, we are watching a theatre of performative concern unfold. Politicians, freshly powdered for the cameras, are arriving with bags of rice, cheques, and empty empathy. They make loud donations, pose with grieving mothers, and deliver soundbites for prime-time television. But what they do not deliver is a comprehensive flood mitigation plan. What they never unveil is a blueprint to stop this nightmare from happening again. The donations are transactional; the tragedy, cyclical.

This is not new. We have seen this same charade after the 2012 floods that displaced over two million Nigerians across 30 states. Again in 2018, major parts of Benue, Anambra, and Delta were submerged. In 2022, over 600 lives were lost and 1.4 million people displaced in what was declared one of Nigeria’s worst natural disasters in decades. Each time, committees are formed, relief is shared, and a deafening silence follows. Until the next flood comes. We are trapped in a loop of disaster and denial.

What is the point of NIMET’s weather forecasts if nobody acts on them? What use is NEMA if it only arrives after villages have become watery graves? Why do state governments scramble to distribute relief materials instead of investing in pre-flood interventions? Why do we wait to wail when we could act to prevent?

Experts have long warned of Nigeria’s vulnerability to climate-induced disasters, yet there is no national flood risk atlas, no coordinated relocation policy, and certainly no political will to dredge rivers or enforce building codes near water bodies. In places like Mokwa, urban planning is a myth, and informal settlements mushroom in high-risk areas without scrutiny.

The contributory causes of flooding in Nigeria are glaring—blocked drainages, unregulated deforestation, poor waste disposal, construction across waterways, failure to release water from dams gradually, and the backflow from neighboring countries like Cameroon during heavy rains. But perhaps the greatest culprit is the pervasive absence of political foresight and empathy.

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We can no longer pretend that floods are “natural disasters.” They are man-made catastrophes aided by neglect and ignorance. There is nothing natural about people living in areas that should have long been declared unsafe. There is nothing natural about public officials failing to prioritize environmental sustainability in their budgets. There is certainly nothing natural about losing 200 lives in one sweep of water and acting as though it were a minor event.

Mokwa is a metaphor for all of us. It is the consequence of our national amnesia—our strange habit of mourning loudly and forgetting quickly. In a few weeks, the media frenzy will die down, the politicians will return to their SUVs, and displaced residents will return to ruins, left alone with trauma and mud. Until the next rainfall.

We are long past the time of crocodile tears. What we need is a flood of action. We need governments—local, state, and federal—to begin treating flood prevention as a national security issue. We need real-time data, engineering solutions, ecological restoration, and urban planning. But most of all, we need political leaders who feel the pain of their people.

Because when flood becomes funeral, the nation itself begins to drown.

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has advised all corps members passing out of the service year in the country not to lose hope despite economic challenges.

Brig:-Gen Olakunle Nafiu, the Director General of NYSC gave the advice in Bauchi, during the distribution of certificates of national service to the 2024 Batch B stream 1 corps members passing out of the scheme.

Represented by Mr Kufre Umoren, the Bauchi state Coordinator of the scheme, the DG said that Nigeria is a country filled with opportunities that when effectively tapped into, could turn things around.

“I want to encourage you, despite the harsh economic conditions, don’t lose hope in your country. You can still turn the situation around because Nigeria is a land of opportunities.

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“If you travel around the country, you will realize that there is no part of the country that does not have mineral resources or one form of economic advantage.

“Don’t give up, I have trust in your strength because the Nigerian youth are resilient, strong, hard working and ingenious.

“It’s not a time for you to go back to your parents and start eating their food again. It’s a time for you to think of how you can provide for and support them,” said the DG.

According to him, this is a moment for the corps members to start making critical decisions that would shape their futures and plan ahead of their next phase of life.

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Nafiu, who urged the corps members to appreciate their parents and sponsors’ efforts for seeing them through their school, also called on them to appreciate themselves especially, those that had touched other people’s children’s lives and served their nation faithfully.

“For those of you that have faithfully undergone the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development programme of the NYSC, this is the time for you to put into practice what you have learned in the programme.

“It is not a time for you to sit down and be lazy. The world is not like it used to be in our own time.

“So, it’s the time for you to look inward and know what you can do for yourself and for your country.”

A total number of 1054 corps members including 584 males and 467 females were given their certificates of national service in Bauchi state.