(Bloomberg) -- Flooding in Nigeria that has claimed the lives of at least 269 people and displaced more than 500,000 others looks set to get even worse as neighboring Cameroon releases water from one of its main dams.
The flooding has impacted 31 states in Africa’s most populous nation, wiping out crops, submerging homes and causing a dam to burst in the northeastern Borno state, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.
The influx of even more water released from Cameroon’s Lagdo dam would cause additional damage to farmlands and crops downstream in central Nigeria and exacerbate already high levels of food insecurity, according to Kabiru Ibrahim, head of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria.
“The flooding and dam opening are going to have devastating effect on the country’s infrastructure as well as the food system,” with the harvest season approaching, he said by phone on Thursday. “ We thought insecurity was the biggest threat,” but that has now been surpassed, he said.
The north is Nigeria’s breadbasket and bandit attacks there have prompted many farmers to abandon their land, contributing to nationwide food shortages that have now become even more acute. Several other West African countries have also been hard hit by heavy rain and floods in recent weeks, with Chad, Niger and Mali among the worst affected.
The release of water from the Lagdo dam is an annual event, and has triggered flooding in Nigeria in the past — including in 2022 when more than 500 people were killed.
Nigeria’s emergency management agency said preparations for the rainy season had factored in flows of excess water from the dam, and it was coordinating with local government authorities to relocate people living on floodplains from harm’s way, according to its spokesman Mazon Ezekiel.
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