Post by Miebaka Emmanuel Ikiriko (@miebaka86)

"Nature does not need man, but man needs nature for a living. Yet in Nigeria, we are learning this truth the hard way, through swollen rivers, submerged homes, and the silent erosion of lives we can never reclaim.

The 2025 rainy season was a brutal teacher. Across 25 states, over 315,000 Nigerians were affected by flooding. 231 people lost their lives. 40,493 houses were destroyed, and 46,304 hectares of farmland were washed away, taking with them the livelihoods of families who had nothing else to fall back on. In Borno State alone, flash floods in September displaced nearly 6,000 people in a single week, destroying 849 shelters in camps already sheltering the displaced. And as if the trauma were not enough, the 2026 outlook is already flashing red: 30,707 communities across 33 states and the FCT are at high risk of severe flooding. 4,792 healthcare facilities and 10,684 schools could be submerged. Lagos, Adamawa, Kogi, Benue, Niger, and Delta are all on the frontline.

But the floods are not just "acts of God." They are acts of neglect. We build on floodplains and call it development. We clog our drainages with refuse and blame the rain. We receive early warnings from NiHSA and NiMET year after year, yet we treat them like footnotes instead of battle plans. And when the waters rise, we reach for relief materials instead of prevention strategies. The result? A staggering N13 trillion in combined losses from 2024 and 2025 housing, agriculture, infrastructure, and human dignity all swept away in the same current.

The truth is stark: nature does not need us to survive, but we need nature to thrive. Every hectare of farmland we lose to flood is a step closer to food insecurity. Every home submerged is a family torn apart. Every school shut down is a generation delayed. We cannot keep rebuilding what we refuse to protect. The 2026 flood outlook is not just a weather report. it is a reckoning. And if we do not change how we plan, govern, and respect the land that sustains us, the next rainy season will write the same story in deeper water and heavier loss.

Nature does not need man. But man, in Nigeria, desperately needs to learn how to live with nature."

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