Why Ibaji?

Our flood impact assessment surveyed 322 households in four communities, namely Ejule-Ojegbe, Iyano, Onyedaga, and Odeke, whose means of livelihood were affected and were struggling to recover from the impact of the flood. Farmers demonstrated limited flood awareness and lacked knowledge of preparedness strategies. Out of the 322 surveyed farmers, 75% were unaware of the government’s Annual Flood Outlook predicting flood-prone areas. Surprisingly, 66% didn’t know their community was vulnerable to flood, and 91% received no governmental warnings or evacuation notices. This led to 36% of the farmers being displaced. The severity of flood impact in Ibaji communities has been aggravated by the chronic gap in flood resilience policy implementation that has resulted in the marginalization of Ibaji in national and state intervention in flood management and erosion control. The 2022 flood assessment in Ibaji LGA revealed that while increased flood risk awareness enhanced preparedness among residents, many remained oblivious to their community’s flood vulnerability. This gap is attributed to Ibaji LGA’s exclusion from the 2022 annual flood outlook policy document, a key early warning system. Furthermore, the map below showed that in the Flood Rapid Assessment conducted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and development partners in November 2022, Ibaji was mapped as not affected by the flood crisis. The omission from the annual flood outlook and flood impact assessment conducted by development partners not only compromised the community’s readiness, response, and recovery efforts, but also sidelined them from federal, state, and international flood recovery initiatives. This oversight in policy has weakened their resilience, affecting their ability to prepare for and respond to floods.