Floods Of The Delta: How It Is Currently Playing Out In Ndokwa East, Isoko South, Ijaw And Itsekiri Communities

October 26, 2022 Greg Abolo

The Oasis Reporters

October 26, 2022

This is part of the only highground in Araya, Isoko South Local Govt Area of Delta State. There’s a wooden canoe near it, in case any one wants to launch out into the flood’s from the community’s ‘Noah’s Ark’, the storey building. Many citizens rejected the concept of relocation from their familiar environment..talk about resilience.

By Greg Abolo
@gregabolo
@Theoasisreport1

Niger delta flood watchers would tell you that the dry season when waters begin to recede is usually on October 16 each year.
Do not be surprised when a young kid would come back from the rivers and announce the incoming dry season.

And the child would be right because his eyes would have noticed an inch of dryness at the water level. Even up till the great flood of 2012, so was it.

But times are changing. This is the season of Climate change. Those who lived with the floods of 2012 and decided to brave it out be rejecting evacuation while seeking for some high ground to squat in at home this 2022 have a different story to tell.

*This is a flooded home in Ase, Ndokwa East Local Govt Area of Delta State.*

Uyouyou from Araya community in Isoko south local government area, told The Oasis Reporters that the floods this year were considerably higher than it was in 2012.

Watch Araya at the beginning of the flood.

This second video is also from Araya in Isoko South Local Government Area. This was how bad it got last week. Watch.

“It is October 26 today. Ten days since we started watching for signs of an approaching dryness. It’s been very slow. And any little rainfall increases the flood level again”.

Yet the people are hopeful like Ossai in Ase town, Ndokwa East local government area who sped off on a speed boat from his community to Oleh town in Isoko south for the purchase of a few more provisions and receive a little network to make a call.

” The only GSM base station belonging to Glo in Ase stopped working when the flood waters overran the station. There’s no access to take a tanker of diesel there, keeping residents incommunicado since the onset of the floods “.

Information we got via video footages from Ase, Araya and various other communities show roofs in flood waters. Only high rise buildings are accommodating citizens in Delta who wish to sit out the floods that are receding very slowly.

“We expect a little normalcy by the first week of November”, Ossai told us, calling from Oleh.

Which way forward, Delta ?

These are two videos of how really bad it got on the famous East-West road in the last couple of days.

Watch:

As things stand, in the coming years, every deltan going home to build a house would consider pillars and storey buildings first.

Flood levels would be put into consideration before building. Government itself should consider a much more elevated planning for road construction.

Nature would not be cheated. In late October, there’d be some rapid warming of the Earth around Delta state. Therefore consider evaporation. So up till December this year, dryness would definitely increase and the lives of the people shall return back to normal.

Hunger is however going to dog the lives of the people since all the farmlands in low lying areas were submerged in the the flood, consequently destroying their crops. Garri and other food items are going to be expensive in the markets from Warri to Burutu, Bomadi, Kwale, Asaba, Ughelli, Oleh, Ozoro, Sapele, Oghara, Abraka, Obiaruku, Aboh, Amai, Ashaka and every other community in Delta state, an area of hitherto resilient people.

This 2022 flood has really dealt a huge and devastating blow on the people.

Greg Abolo
Gregabolo@gmail.com