FLOODING IN KANO STATE ROADS AND MARKETS: A TRAGEDY ROOTED IN INDISCIPLINE AND NEGLECT

 FLOODING IN KANO STATE ROADS AND MARKETS: A TRAGEDY ROOTED IN INDISCIPLINE AND NEGLECT

By Tijjani Sarki | Good Governance Advocate and Public Policy Analyst

Zawaciki, Kano. 17th July 2025

Every rainy season in Kano no longer feels like a cycle of life it feels like a curse we’ve invited with our own hands. With every storm, traders watch their livelihoods destroyed. Commuters wade through stagnant water, children miss school, and entire families wake to their homes swallowed by floods. Year after year, the same pain. The same losses. And still no real change.

This tragedy is the bitter harvest of years of policy neglect and maladministration, where poor urban planning and weak governance have left us vulnerable and exposed.

A Man-Made Disaster:

We must stop pointing fingers at the skies. These floods are not a punishment from above they are the direct result of our negligence, our indiscipline, and our failure to uphold even the most basic civic responsibilities.

We have allowed chaos to reign, and nature is only responding.

When Carelessness Becomes Culture

Kano, a city built on centuries of strength and civilization, now drowns under its own waste. We have normalized dumping refuse into drains, blocking the very channels that should carry rainwater to safety. We suffocate our own lifelines with filth, then lament when they strike back.

Clean-up days are now symbolic gestures, rarely observed with sincerity. Our markets once the heartbeat of local trade now fester in stagnation, their lifeblood halted by garbage and neglect.

This is not just a government failure. It is a societal collapse of responsibility.

The Illusion of Progress,Everywhere we turn, structures rise where water once flowed. Homes and shops are built recklessly on floodplains. Drainage paths are blocked by buildings that should never have been approved. In our race for “development,” we are destroying the very ground we stand on.

Land is traded without regulation. Estates mushroom overnight, often with no drainage, no access roads, no plan. We gamble with lives for the sake of quick profits and lose, every rainy season.

This is not development. It is devastation disguised as progress.

Governance in Retreat:

The government cannot continue to look away.

Too many roads are commissioned with ribbon-cutting ceremonies but no drainage systems collapsing with the first downpour. Too many construction violations go unpunished, while regulatory agencies remain silent or complicit.

This silence is not neutral it is lethal.

We need leaders who plan with foresight, not fanfare. We need institutions that serve the people, not the powerful.

The Reckoning We Need

These floods are not just about water. They are about who we have become a society where convenience trumps discipline, where public good is sacrificed at the altar of private gain.

We must choose a different path. Now.

To the people of Kano:

i.Stop dumping waste into the gutters.

ii.Revive the culture of community cleanups not once a month, but as a shared, consistent responsibility.

iii.Hold your local representatives accountable. Demand transparency and action.

To the government:

i.Enforce environmental sanitation laws without fear or favor.

ii.Dismantle illegal structures blocking water channels.

iii.Design and build roads with proper drainage. Make this non-negotiable.

iv.Invest in urban planning not for political applause, but for long-term survival.

iv.Empower planning authorities with the tools and independence to do their jobs.

Unless we reclaim a sense of discipline and collective duty, these floods will not stop. And each time, they will take more,more lives, more homes, more hope.

We can stop this. But only if we act not later, not someday now.

Tijjani Sarki

Good Governance Advocate and Public Policy Analyst

17th July 2025 | Zawaciki, Kano