Nigeria’s Hydrological Services Agency warned Saturday of high riverine flood risk across 15 states through September 25, directing communities along vulnerable floodplains to begin relocating to higher ground before rising river levels reach their peak.
Director-General Umar Mohammed disclosed the warning in the agency’s National Flood Advisory, identifying Imo, Cross River, Ebonyi, Benue, Anambra and Akwa Ibom among the states facing the most severe exposure, alongside Edo, Bayelsa, Enugu, Kogi, Delta, Abia, Taraba, Rivers and Lagos. Mohammed said rising water levels at monitoring stations including Obubra, Itigidi and Epento on the Cross River were expected to drive flooding into surrounding communities over the coming week.
“Communities on the floodplain should prepare to move to higher ground,” Mohammed said, urging state governments to act urgently to relocate residents rather than wait for flooding to materialize before responding.
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The scale of exposure varies sharply by state, according to figures compiled in the advisory. Cross River faces the widest reach, with 2,471 communities, 703 schools, 344 health facilities, 145 markets, 453 religious buildings and 854 hectares of farmland identified as exposed across eight local government areas, including Calabar and Calabar South. Ebonyi State follows closely, with 2,574 communities and nearly 1,900 hectares of farmland at risk across six local government areas centered on Abakaliki and Afikpo.
In Imo State, the agency flagged seven local government areas — Aboh-Mbaise, Ahiazu-Mbaise, Ehime Mbano, Ezinihitte, Ideato North, Ihitte/Uboma and Ikeduru — where 958 communities, 1,022 schools, 553 health facilities, 161 markets and 198 religious buildings sit within the projected flood zone. Anambra State’s exposure spans seven local government areas as well, with 1,314 communities and over 1,500 hectares of farmland identified, alongside more than 1,300 schools and over 1,000 healthcare facilities that could be affected if the warned flooding materializes.
Benue State’s exposure is comparatively narrower, with 303 communities and 55 hectares of farmland flagged across six local government areas including Katsina-Ala and Guma, while Akwa Ibom’s eight affected local government areas span 249 communities and 323 schools. The agency’s advisory did not provide the same level of asset-by-asset detail for several of the remaining nine states on the warning list, though it named them as facing severe flood risk over the same period.
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The advisory arrives as flooding and other disaster-response failures have drawn heightened public scrutiny in Nigeria this month. A separate crisis involving the deaths of dozens of suspected illegal miners in security custody in Niger State has kept questions about institutional preparedness and accountability in the national conversation, a backdrop against which NiHSA’s early warning takes on additional weight for state governments already facing pressure to demonstrate readiness.
Nigeria’s rainy season has produced recurring riverine flooding in recent years, with schools, markets and health facilities in low-lying communities along the Niger and Cross River basins among the assets most frequently affected. State emergency management agencies typically coordinate evacuation and relief efforts once NiHSA issues advisories of this kind, though the pace and completeness of relocation efforts has varied significantly by state in past flooding seasons.
NiHSA’s advisory did not specify what support, if any, the federal government plans to provide to state authorities managing relocation efforts, nor did it set out contingency plans for communities that may be unable to relocate within the seven-day window before flooding is expected to peak. The agency said it would continue to monitor river levels and issue updated advisories as conditions develop.
The Eastern Updates notes that riverine flooding tied to the annual rainy season has repeatedly overwhelmed local disaster-response capacity in several of the states named in Saturday’s advisory, with damaged farmland and displaced households often taking months to recover even after floodwaters recede. Agricultural losses tied to past flooding seasons have contributed to food price pressures in affected regions, adding an economic dimension to a hazard that state and federal authorities have struggled to get ahead of despite recurring early warnings from the hydrological agency.
State emergency management agencies in the states named Saturday have not yet issued their own public relocation timelines in response to NiHSA’s advisory, leaving open how quickly residents in the highest-risk communities will receive local guidance on where to move and what support, such as temporary shelter or transport assistance, might be available to them during the coming week.
