Every year, between April and October, Nigeria holds its breath. Africa’s most populous country is once again going through a rainy season marked by recurring floods, a phenomenon that has become almost ritual but whose intensity keeps worrying both authorities and residents. As early as April 2026, the government set the tone by placing thirty-three of the country’s thirty-six states on alert, a strong signal of how severe this season was expected to be.
The events of summer confirmed those fears. In July, the upscale neighborhoods of Lekki and Ikoyi in Lagos State found themselves submerged after particularly heavy rainfall, prompting the Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency to issue a flash flood warning valid until July 10. A month later, it was the federal capital Abuja’s turn to be hit: heavy rain triggered sudden flooding that trapped drivers and residents in several districts of the Federal Capital Territory, an episode that spilled over into neighboring Niger as well.
These urban floods stem from a well-known combination of factors. Climate change is intensifying rainfall, making downpours heavier and more concentrated in time. On top of that, aging drainage infrastructure struggles to absorb such volumes of water, while rapid urbanization keeps eating into natural runoff areas. Dams, often old and poorly maintained, represent another major weak point: their failure has already triggered some of the deadliest disasters of recent years.
To grasp the scale of what Nigeria faces each season, one only needs to look at recent precedents. In 2022, the country suffered its worst floods in a decade, with more than six hundred deaths, nearly one and a half million people displaced, and four hundred forty thousand hectares of farmland destroyed. Two years later, the collapse of the Alau Dam near Maiduguri plunged the capital of Borno State into chaos: roughly forty percent of the city ended up underwater, leading over the course of that season to two hundred twenty-nine deaths and the displacement of more than three hundred eighty thousand people, along with the loss of over one hundred seven thousand hectares of farmland. In 2025, it was the town of Mokwa, in Niger State, that paid a heavy price, with at least one hundred fifty deaths and several thousand people forced to flee their homes.
These repeated disasters often strike populations that are already vulnerable. In Borno State, the epicenter of the 2024 floods overlapped with an area torn for more than fourteen years by a jihadist insurgency, considerably complicating humanitarian access and relief efforts. Homes built of mud and bamboo, common in rural and peri-urban areas, hold up poorly against rising water, while the destruction of farmland directly threatens the food security of a country already struggling to feed its population.
Faced with this recurring situation, Nigerian authorities keep trying to organize a response. The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, typically deploys canoe-equipped teams to rescue stranded residents, opens relief camps, and distributes emergency financial aid to affected families. State governors regularly pledge to rebuild and reinforce damaged infrastructure, as was the case for the Alau Dam after its collapse. International organizations such as the Red Cross, UNICEF, and OCHA also step in to support these efforts, providing food, clean water, medical care, and psychosocial support to displaced populations.
As the 2026 season continues through October, NEMA has not yet published a consolidated national toll for this year. Still, the episodes recorded so far, first in Lagos and then in Abuja, hint at another difficult year for a country facing the same equation season after season: increasingly violent rains colliding with infrastructure that keeps struggling to keep pace with climate change.
