A novel Account of Flooding Devastation and Consequences in Kogi State, Nigeria

— The study investigated the Impact of flooding in the Kogi state community in Nigeria. The motive behind the research was ignited by the hardship and adverse conditions faced by the community as par the flood in Kogi state. In line with this, a structured questionnaire was utilized for interviewing 300 people who are residents of the affected state. The validation of the instrument was done through peer review and pilot testing. Data was collected and a summary was done. In the same vein they were computed using frequency, percentages and Linkert scaling test. The results from the analysis indicated that 94% of the respondents agreed that flooding destroyed their livestock and farm products, blocked their roads, submerged their buildings and rendered many homeless. It affected daily road transportation, businesses were distorted, thereby impacting negatively on their economy. However, it is recommended that government should assist the victims of this flooding by providing them with relief materials, an alerting device, Internally Displaced People’s Camp with portable water and mosquito nets, while periodic meetings should be held between the weather forecasters and the community members to educate them.


I. INTRODUCTION
According to [1] flooding is an overflow of water that submerges a land that is normally dry. Human influences in the environment, including variations in waterway courses, removal of wetlands, land use changes like deforestation, flood control measures with levees, and other environmental issues such as climate change and sea level rise more often than not increase the severity of flooding [2].
According to [3], when there is a heavy rainfall, it can lead to significant environmental effects. It was estimate that 19% of the world"s population is directly exposed to risks of flooding [4].
In developing countries, flooding results from climate change, excessive precipitation, building on waterways, sealevel rise, soil moisture regime, dam operations, especially along borders, uncontrolled rapid population growth, inadequate preparedness, and lack of political will [5, 6 and 7]. It was reported by [8] that the adverse effects of climate change are more pronounced in developing countries, and are thus more prone to further change. The highly affected areas are the lowland areas and waterfront properties.
Flooding commonly occur in some Nigerian State such as Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Cross Rivers, Delta, Kogi, Niger and Rivers. Research shows that flooding of soils is considered a natural phenomenon, which occurs between May-October during the rainy season, and usually affects farmlands, residential areas, properties, and businesses particularly those located in the flood plains of rivers [9][10][11][12].
In line with this, the torrential rainfall between September and October 2012 that hit the low land areas of Nigeria resulted to devastation flooding of rivers, streams and coastline areas [13]. This flooding was attributed to natural phenomena such as climate change and global warning, thus creating huge awareness of flood disasters.
According to [14], the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) have raised alarm that heavy rains across Nigeria usually caused the overflow of rivers Niger and Benue thus leading to the flooding crisis. The flooding crisis in Nigeria was disastrous in 2022; on September 13, 2022 water from Ladgo dam in Cameroon and other dams were released which resulted in riverine flooding causing pain and anguish to thousands of people now rendered homeless and killing about 300 people in Kogi State, Nigeria. This study attempt to assess the impact of the riverine flooding on Kogi state community and its environs in Nigeria

A. Study area
Kogi State is located in North Central Nigeria occupying a landmass of 29,833 km 2 . It shares boundaries with Niger state, Kwara, Nassarawa States and The Federal Capital Territory in the North, Enugu and Anambra States in the South, Benue state in the East, Ondo, Ekiti, and Edo states in the West. Kogi state is made up of the following tribes, Igala, Ebira, Kabba, Yoruba, and Bssa. Kogi State is the only confluence state in Nigeria because the state capital Lokoja, is the meeting point for West Africa"s largest rivers, Niger and Benue. The meeting of these two major rivers in Lokoja, impacted the banks of the Lower Niger river, thus flooding Lokoja and its environs ( Figure 1).

B. Research design
The design of this study was a descriptive survey approach to ascertain the impact of the flood disaster between May and October, 2022 on Kogi State community in Nigeria A sample of the populations was as representatives was selected and studied, and the results generated were taken as a reflection of the whole population.

C. Population and Sample
The sample population was made up of three hundred (300) respondents residing or working in Lokoja and environs such as Ajaokuta, Kotonkarfi, Idah, Ofu and Ibaji Local Council Areas of Kogi State. The selection of respondents was done via a simple random sampling technique was from building and farmland owners, business class and civil servants in the community. Thus, this study was primarily focused on Kogi State, Nigeria.

D. Research Instrument
In this study, observation and personal interviews with the help of structured questionnaires, titled "Kogi State flooding Questionnaire" were the instruments used for data collection. The questionnaire has two sections; the first the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, and the second comprises 18 Likert type categories designed for the assessment. There was validation of the questionnaire before administration as to improve it. A reliability coefficient of 0.82 was harvested from test-reset reliability scale.

E. Data Analysis
The summary data collected were computed using descriptive statistics; frequency and percentages. Information was computed on the impact of flooding on different activities of Kogi State community on a four-point Likert Rating Scale; strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed, strongly disagreed1 representing 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectively. The mean score was found to be 2.50. Using the interval score of 0.05, the upper limit cut-off was 2.50 + 0.05 = 2.55 and the lower limit; 2.50 -0.05 = 2.45. Based on this, mean score (MS) below 2.45 (< 2.45) were considered "low", those between 2.45 and 2.54 (2.45 ≥ MS ≤ 2.54) were ranked "medium", while those greater than or equal to 2.55 (MS ≥ 2.55) were seen as "high".

The respondents and socio-economic features
The summary of the selected socio-economic characteristics of members of Kogi State community are shown in Table 1. Half of the respondents (50%) were males and 50% females. The prevailing religions were Christianity (40%), Islamic (44%) and traditional religion (16%). The average age of the respondents was 40 and majority of them (80%) are less than 50 years old. This implies that the population of the community is more of young, physically strong people that can help to control the flooding effectively. The married, formed the Major part of the respondents (80%), while 20% of the respondents are singles, an indication that most of them are responsible. The number that attended tertiary education are few (10%). Those that attended secondary education were about 36%, while 30% were primary school certificate holders implying that the members of the community have the basic education to tackle the menace of flooding on introduction of control measures. Similarly, the community members owing buildings are 58% , while 30% own farmlands, this shows that they might be victims of flooding on a high sale. Table 2 showing the scale of loss due to flooding as experienced by community members. Most of the members of the community experienced losses due to the flooding with the scale of (94%). Residential houses were submerged by flooding as shown in Figure 2a. In Figure 2b,   It also submerged churches and mosques in the community (Figure 3), market places and stores being the main means of livelihood for the populace of the community and were also submerged there by distorting their businesses. Many roads were covered and blocked by the flood (Figure  4a), including the Ganaja axis of Lokoja, Ganaja road which leads to the eastern senatorial district of the state and also to the southern part of the country. This caused gridlock and pains to travelers who took to travelling by water using Canoe as an alternative (Figure 4b).

A. Impact of Flooding on some activities of the Community Members
The impact of flooding on some activities of the community members were shown on Table 3. Having considered the mean scores greater than 2.55 as high, flooding was found to have influenced all activities in the community significantly, there by having severe adverse effect on the members of the community as a whole. Stakeholders and the government should assist the victims of the flooding and design measures that should be used to check and combat flooding in Kogi State communities.

IV. CONCLUSION
It is obvious from the research work that flooding had impacted negatively on the Kogi state community. It is recommended based on findings, that assistance from the government should be rendered to the members of the community by providing them with the following: i. relief materials ii. an alerting device for the weather forecast. iii. Internally Displaced People"s Camp (IDPC) with portable water and mosquito nets to avoid outbreak of cholera, malaria and typhoid fever iv. periodic town hall meetings should be held between the weather forecasters and the community to educate them about such disaster.