Resilient Maiduguri flooded again: Assessing hope assured college, By Jibrin Ibrahim

I left Maiduguri Monday evening and I was already worried because so many residents were expressing fears that a serious flood was imminent. It came that same night flooding a significant part of the city but also large parts of the Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. The Borno State governor, Prof Babagana Umara Zulum announced that over one million people have been affected as water completely flooded the area. Sewages were inundated and corpses are floating raising a significant fear of the rapid spread of water borne diseases. Meanwhile search and rescue teams have been deployed in operations across affected communities to determine the quantum of loss of lives and property.

Persistent heavy rainfall and release of water from a dam in Cameroon had overwhelmed Alau dam, which overflowed into the city. Governor Zulum assured residents that the Alau Dam would be reconstructed and retrofitted to contain its volume, while illegal structures on waterways and flood prone locations would be demolished. Maiduguri, a city martyred by insurgency is once again confronting death and destruction.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) confirmed that over 200,000 people were displaced. Residential and business areas have been submerged, including the popular Monday Market and thousands of homes and properties, such as the Palace of the Shehu of Borno, Shehuri, Gwange, Adamkolo, Gamboru, Fori, Bulabulin, Post Office areas, Moromoro, and Customs Bridge, among others, have also been affected.

Daily Trust reports that many of the city’s residents said they could not locate their loved ones. The zoo has also been inundated and much of the wildlife have been killed or escaped. The General Manager of Sanda Kyarimi Museum Park, Maiduguri, Ali Abatcha, said 80 per cent of the wildlife in the zoo were killed by the flood. deadly animals like crocodiles and snakes had been washed away into the communities. He asked the public to be aware and take all the necessary precautions to avoid attacks by the animals.

The Gwange Cemetery in Maiduguri was also washed away, leaving corpses floating in the streets. A resident said: “The cemetery is already flat and the water pressure exhumed corpses from several graves. Women and children are traumatised by the horrific sights.” Many patients at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) were also stranded as the facility was submerged.

Water is an equal opportunity actor and the flood is also said to have destroyed the enclave of the Boko Haram, Dollarland, in Sambisa forest, killing many of the insurgents and their families. Daily Trust, quoting “credible sources” in the security circle disclosed that dozens of insurgents, including their women and children, had drowned. The source said the flooding hit the terrorists’ hideout at about 2am when most of them were asleep. “You know, the enclave is a swampy area. Severe flooding from River Yedzaram went into the Dollarland and swept the location. “The insurgents were hit massively by the devastation, over 100 corpses have been buried by the insurgents,” the source said. He said the flood also displaced many  insurgents in Gwoza area.

It is distressing that this is not the first time that the city has been flooded. It first happened in 1994, thirty years ago when the whole of Maiduguri was taken over by water. People climbed trees to survive and many residents thought that the world had come to an end. It should not have been allowed to recur. The Borno State Government has had to reopen several Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps to accommodate people affected by the flood.

Borno is a resilient state and would quickly recover from the current disaster and the State Governor is one of the best performing in the country and would no doubt do his best to alleviate the suffering of the people. I was in Maiduguri to assess the support provided by the Gen T Y. Danjuma led Victim Support Fund for victims of terrorism. I will give the example of just one such project – the Future Assured College established by the former First Lady, Aisha Buhari.

The school was established in 2021 in response to the mayhem caused in the years of destruction by insurgency. Specifically, the school is to educate some of the over 50,000 orphans left vulnerable to all forms of vices by Boko Haram’s terrorists activities. It is established in a serene environment conducive for learning and is equipped with the state-of-the-art facilities of international standard including four laboratories. The students are a maximum of 25 in a class, with well trained teachers and they are fed twice a day.

The school recruits its students from IDP camps and has been from the beginning on the lookout for orphans whose parents have been killed by the terrorists. When the IDP camps in Maiduguri were closed by the government, the school started recruiting from the most vulnerable households in the slums of Maiduguri. Women from these communities are also offered literacy and numeracy programmes over the weekend. The Victim Support Fund granted core support of N500,000,000 (five hundred million naira) for the school so there is no surprise that they have been able to maintain high standards. The school trains 840 students – 140 in the primary section, 560 in secondary and 140 women in the weekend school.

What I found impressive about the school was that they were able to develop a special curriculum for its students, most of whom have  experienced trauma. They use two languages – English and Arabic. They have one-year pre-primary programme to prepare children to catch up for primary one. They also have a mission of providing comprehensive learning including teaching them a trade and profession so they can be self-employed even as they go through primary and secondary school so that they raise some revenue for their parents and siblings.

The most important thing the school does is provide psycho-social support for the children some of whom have seen the horrors of terrorism including the killing of parents and relations. Each child is monitored individually for signs of trauma and treated accordingly. Some pupils for example tend to be violent and need to be oriented towards normal behaviour. Teachers drew my attention to the tendency they observed of students fighting to get front row seats. It turned out that it is behaviour learned in IDP camps where food and supplies are never enough to go around everybody so kids learn to get front row positions so that they get served. The school works with each kid to orient them towards normal behaviour. The school prides itself in building both their education and character. The school only recruit qualified teachers, who go through three steps of screening before being employed. They also undergo mandatory three weeks of development training by experts from University of Maiduguri and other tertiary institutions.

The person who developed the school curriculum and approach is Dr Idris Muhammad Sani Future who is currently the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-School Children’s Education (NCAOOSCE), reiterated the commission’s dedication to providing quality education. I commend him for laying a solid foundation.

A professor of Political Science and development consultant/expert, Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Development, and Chair of the Editorial Board of PREMIUM TIMES.