More Nigerians have joined the call for the Federal Government to launch an investigation into the N231.07 million spent on Alau Dam repairs in six years, as well as the utilisation of ecological funds collected by Borno state.
During an anti-corruption radio programme, Public Conscience, produced by the Progressive Impact Organisation for Community Development (PRIMORG) on Wednesday in Abuja, participants made calls for immediate action by the Federal Government following recent collapse of the dam, leading to devastating floods in Maiduguri communities, causing extensive damage to infrastructure, crops, and shelters, severely affecting livelihoods.
According to a report by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), between 2018 and 2024, the Federal Government paid N231.07 million to six contractors for rehabilitation and repairs of the Alau dam, with further investigations showing that four out of the six contractors had untraceable addresses.
Borno State also collected N816 million as ecological fund allocations from June 2023 to June 2024.
A member of Borno-Yobe Peoples Forum, Alhaji Abba Kaka, led the call for the anti-graft agencies to swing into action immediately, probe the mismanagement of ecological funds and ensure punishment is served on culprits.
Kaka maintained that the latest collapse of the Alau dam and subsequent flooding of Maiduguri communities resulted from systemic corruption prevalent in other states across the federation. He added that most contractors in Nigeria typically focus more on personal gain than delivering quality jobs.
He said: “This dam is supposed to be maintained, and there have been so many warning signs over the last few months because it had happened before in 1994, 30 years ago. This time, it happened on a much larger scale. So the warning signs were there, but it failed because of the systemic corruption in the system, and unfortunately, it’s not only in Maiduguri – a couple of days ago, there was a flood in Kano, and two weeks ago, there was also a flood in Kaduna, there was a flood in Bauchi, Benue, Nasarawa, and it’s all over the place. So systemic corruption is what it is.
“Anybody responsible for our people being messed up like this should be investigated, invited by the EFCC, arrested by the Police and all the security operatives for the person to explain and let them get some experts to see who failed in their responsibility.
“The systemic problem of Nigeria is getting worse. So all the security agencies, the EFCC especially, should be strengthened first to prevent this kind of negligence, and they should go after whoever is responsible”.
Kaka urged more support to victims of the Maiduguri flooding from well-meaning Nigerians while advising citizens to demand accountability of ecological funds and other resources managed by political leaders.
A journalist with the ICIR, Kehinde Ogunyale welcomed the calls for the government to probe the management of Alau dam repair funds while calling for more focus on the utilisation of ecological funds to the 36 states of the federation. He said, “If road and other revenue-gulping projects are called into question, ecological funds should not be treated differently.”
Ogunyale disclosed that ICIR’s findings showed that the Alau dam collapse was orchestrated more by corruption, negligence, and fraudulent contracting than climate change, as claimed by the Borno State Government.
“Unfortunately, what happened with the Alau dam collapse didn’t start first from a climate issue; it was exacerbated because of an infrastructural problem, and that’s why we had to question over N200 million allocated for this dam in the space of six years by different administrations.
“We were unable to find specific details of these contractors like addresses and phone numbers online, which on a larger scale, makes it a little bit shady because when you take a Federal Government project, we should be able to find a phone number we can call. You find such shady things, and you begin to question, was this work done or was money just disbursed?
“If it was done, maybe that dam would not have been damaged to the extent to which it got damaged”, he said.
Ogunyale urged Nigerians to start questioning the activities of government agencies. “If every govt agency fulfills their outlined mandate, a lot of reports that we tell as journalists will not be told. The first problem is to question the mandates of these agencies”, he said.
A victim of the flooding in Maiduguri, Nuhu Ismaila, describing the level of impact of the flood on the citizens, said a lot of people are still in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps as several houses were affected by the deluge.
Ismaila confirmed that relief materials are getting to victims at IDP camps and that normalcy is gradually returning to the city. He disclosed that he is unaware of funds allocated for the repair of the Alau dam or the N816 million ecological funds Borno State collected between 2023 and 2024.
He urged more support from the Nigerian government and citizens. He said: “The flood really affected us badly, some people are in camps. The Borno state government has been there, giving them food items and relief materials, but I didn’t get mine because I am not in camp.
“My appeal is that people lost their lives and their houses. Right now, people are homeless and are still on the streets and roads. Those are the people that the government and some organizations should take serious note of”.
An Abuja resident, Abdulkareem Ishabi, who called into the radio programme, also pleaded with the Bola Tinubu administration to urgently launch an inquiry into managing Alau dam repair funds. He said: “I’d like the Federal Government to come in and investigate this matter. Let them be fair so we can have an iota of hope regarding accountability. Let’s put sincerity into this matter since it’s costing lives and property”.
Public Conscience is a syndicated weekly anti-corruption radio programme PRIMORG uses to draw government and citizens’ attention to corruption and integrity issues in Nigeria.
It has the support of the MacArthur Foundation.
