CLAIM: Green Environment and Climate Change (GECC) Initiative, an environmental conversation organisation in a Twitter post on Sept. 27, claimed that Nigeria had recorded more flooding in 2022 than in any other year.
The organisation noted that if residents didn’t follow the early warnings with early actions, the devastation would overwhelm the country in the coming years.
FLOODING IN NIGERIA
We have recorded more flooding in 2022 than in any other year. If we don’t follow these early warnings with early actions the devastation will overwhelm us in the coming years.#geccinitiative#flood2022 #flooding #flooddamage #FloodRelief pic.twitter.com/RV519DxAFp
— Green Environment and Climate Change Initiative (@GECC_Initiative) September 27, 2022
“FLOODING IN NIGERIA We have recorded more flooding in 2022 than in any other year. If we don’t follow these early warnings with early actions the devastation will overwhelm us in the coming years,” GECC Initiative said in the post.
The post was only retweeted nine times and liked by five tweeps, GECC Initiative has 2,466 followers on the social networking platform.
VERIFICATION: Unarguably, flood has assumed one of the climate change concerns in Nigeria over the years. Nevertheless, the flood situation in the country as was announced by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in Sept. 2022 showed that the 2012 flooding in Nigeria was still ahead as the worst in terms of severity and casualties.
For instance, Mr. Mustapha Ahmed, Director-General, NEMA, in the Vanguard report of Sept 19, said flooding killed more than 300 persons, injured 500 persons, and displaced 100,000 others in 2022.
This is against the 2012 flooding, which between July and October of the year, pushed rivers over their banks and submerged hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, according to Earth Observatory.
Earth Observatory, quoting the Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said by mid-October of 2012, floods had forced 1.3 million people from their homes and claimed 431 lives.
CONCLUSION: The claim that Nigeria, as of September 2022, had experienced more flooding than any other year is PARTLY FALSE. Though there was a strong indication that 2022 may be the worst for flooding in Nigeria, there was no proof, as of September, when the claim was made that the severity and casualties have outnumbered that of 2012.
Editor’s note: the flooding in Nigeria is still ongoing and the casualty figures keep rising, but the fact check was in order at the time the report was published on Oct 18, 2022.
This fact-check was produced by BONews Service with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, International Fact-Checking Network, and African Fact Checking Alliance network.