EMERGENCY RESPONSE AND GOVERNANCE GAPS DURING THE 2025 MOKWA FLOODING IN NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

Purpose: In late May 2025, severe flooding struck Mokwa, a major commercial town in Niger State, Nigeria, claiming lives, displacing thousands of residents, and destroying critical infrastructure. Despite early warnings, emergency response efforts and governance structures revealed significant weaknesses in preparedness, coordination, and community engagement. Drawing on news reports, official assessments, and humanitarian response summaries, this paper analyses the emergency response and governance gaps that emerged from the crisis and offers recommendations to strengthen future flood risk governance and response mechanisms.

Design/Methodology/approach: The study employed a case study research design involving both qualitative and quantitative data. A total of 200 respondents were proportionately sampled from Tiffinmadza and Ungwan Hausawa. Random sampling was initially used to select housing units located along the banks of the river, which were the areas most affected by the floods. From the compiled list of affected housing units, 46 and 154 units were randomly selected from the two respective communities.

Findings: The findings reveal that although the Nigerian government, through the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Presidency, acted quickly to mobilise relief, the effectiveness of the response was hindered by systemic governance weaknesses. These included inadequate early warning systems, delays in evacuation, weak inter-agency coordination, and the failure to implement planned flood mitigation projects. While the World Health Organization and local actors contributed to emergency health interventions, recovery efforts were undermined by resource mismanagement, poor urban planning, and limited community resilience.

Research implication/Limitation: Government officials, security personnel, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were the only agencies permitted access to the scene of the incident. In addition, some victims could not be located for oral interviews. Furthermore, the terrain was heavily submerged, which made the data collection exercise cumbersome and difficult to carry out effectively.

Practical implication: The paper concludes that while emergency interventions helped reduce immediate mortality, governance deficiencies exacerbated the disaster’s overall impact. It recommends strengthening early warning systems, decentralising water governance, enforcing urban planning regulations, and integrating climate adaptation strategies into Nigeria’s disaster management framework.

Originality/value: The analysis of the data was organised based on a detailed description of the general characteristics of the emergency response operations.