The floods that periodically sweep across the banks of Rivers Benue and Niger down to the Atlantic Ocean in Bayelsa State emanate from the Lagdo Lake in Northern Cameroon. This occurs seasonally, whenever excess water is released from the lake to protect the dam from bursting, inundating, and overwhelming the surrounding towns and villages.
The Lagdo Dam was built in 1982 by a Chinese company to provide electricity and potable water and irrigate farmlands in Garoua and the northern provinces of Cameroon. The flood flashes experienced in Nigeria today were expected to happen; hence, in 1982, a feasibility study was conducted to build a water withholding dam at Dasin Hausa in Furore Local Government Area of Adamawa State. Unfortunately, this project did not proceed further, and after over three decades of dilly-dallying, the plan is still on the drawing board.
The dam in Nigeria would have stopped the incessant floods along the banks of the Benue River and further downstream to the sea. It would in addition, generate electricity, irrigate at least 150,000 hectares of farmlands, create jobs, and attract tourists to the location and Adamawa State.
While the torrents of water continue to wreak havoc in Nigeria, the people of Northern Cameroon are enjoying the resources derived from the lake.I can still recall my visit to the dam when I accompanied officers from the Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, during their 1992 world tour, and my mission, the Nigerian High Commission, Yaounde, hosted the group. The government of Cameroon organised a guided tour of the dam complex for the delegation.
The lake is the source of potable water and irrigation of cotton, maize, millet, and sorghum animal fooder, grazing fields, and fishing in and around Garoua. The electricity generated powers the Northern provinces of the country with excess capacity.
Cotton produced is processed into clothing materials in textile mills in Garoua, where there is a river port through which goods are transported in barges on the River Benue tributary to Douala seaport over 1000 kilometres away. The climate around the lake is temperate, scenic, and a good holiday destination for tourists.
The Dasin Hausa dam, if built, would, in addition to the benefits mentioned above, prevent the floods that have caused extensive damage in Nigeria.
The abandoned project is not the only one in this category. The Federal Ministry of Water Resources has identified over 100 of them. Some of these are the Khashimbila dam in Taraba State, the Ikere-Iseyin dam in Oyo State, the Dadin Kowa dam in Taraba State, and the Goronyo dam in Gombe State, among several others.
These projects have passed through 10 different administrations in Nigeria from 1982-2018. The successive governments and the institutions in charge of the projects, which are the Water Basin Authorities and the Federal and State Ministries of Water Resources, should be blamed for their lack of foresight and lackadaisical attitude towards a critical national project.
If these state institutions had been strong, up and doing, they would have circumvented the challenges by proposing alternative solutions with convincing arguments on the urgent need to build the Dasin Hausa dam for its economic value and as the only solution to the seasonal floods in most parts of Nigeria.
According to the National Emergency Management Agency and other reliable sources, 6000 houses were destroyed and 7 million people displaced during the 2012 floods, with losses put at over $12 billion. The floods have continued to devastate communities every year without any known action taken to achieve a definite solution other than the efficiency displayed by NEMA in the evacuation of victims.
The following measures are hereby suggested to break this intractable problem. The dams should be handed over to the state governments in which they are located. The funds for the completion of the dams should be sourced from Nigeria’s foreign reserves, which remain strong at over 40 billion USD. This should start the Dasin Hausa and other flood-control dams.
Also, the oil for the project solution should be emplaced as a viable option. This is also called countertrade, a situation where oil wells in exchange for capital projects is another option. This arrangement was discussed with the Chinese government during the administration of late President Yar’Adua. The details of the deal are elaborated in Segun Adeniyi’s book, Politics, Power and Death. The insights gleaned from the book highlighted the lost opportunity to safeguard lives from deaths and loss of properties by building dams and irrigation units.
The loan option is another possibility, in which case the funds obtained cannot be used for any other purpose other than the designated projects.
While Public-Private Partnership, alias PPP, is another possibility to facilitate the projects, it has unfortunately failed to achieve far-reaching results in Nigeria. This will create unnecessary delays because the ‘investors’, in most cases, do not have the funds or anything to offer other than influence in high places.
In conclusion, the root causes of the flash floods in Nigeria are known, and the solution and sources of funding have been identified. The gravity of the situation is also known, and the enormous benefits to the economy are obvious. It is a national embarrassment that, year after year, the effects of the floods are handled efficiently, but the obvious solution is glossed over or even ignored.
