•Climate change takes toll, families lose children, farmlands washed off, crops destroyed
In Ebonyi State, 11 of the 13 local government areas experience severe impacts of climate change. The impacts on the communities are massive: families losing their children to flood, farmlands being washed off, crops and agricultural produce destroyed. The human, economic and ecological losses are huge, putting the state among the most impacted by climate change.
In this special report, The Sun Media Foundation team visited Ebonyi communities where women and children are hard-hit by floods and excessive heatwaves.
Benedicta Ekwuma wore a mild smile, mingled freely with her peers, until the cloud formed thick and threatening to rain. Then the 63-year-old woman began to shiver. She tried to adjust her seat, but her voice gave her thoughts away. “It is going to rain, my bed is going to be soaked,” she muttered in her dialect.
Benedicta is a farmer in Akpoha community in Afikpo North of Ebonyi. The community is reported to be very vulnerable to flood and landslides.
In 2022, Benedicta and many other women farmers in the state lost almost all their harvest to floods. Most of the women also lost their homes to floods and landslides.
Alice Ogba, 53, easily got infected by the worries of Benedicta. She, too, had the roof of her house damaged during the flood of 2022. She looked far older than her age, each wrinkle on her face is a bag of tales. She stared piercingly, searching for words to describe her experience: “When the flood destroyed my farm last year, it wiped everything I had worked and toiled for. I felt like dying.” Alice, a widow and mother of seven children, ekes a living as a farmer.
Almost everyone among the 214 women farmers who gathered under the tree at the Akpoha village square were ready to tell their experience of the flood.
As part of its programmes on “Climate Action and Local Community Strengthening,” The Sun Media Foundation held a community dialogue on the gender perspective of climate change in several high-impact flood-prone communities in Ebonyi State, considering especially the effect on women and children.
Ebonyi, like 15 other states across the country, has been placed on high alert for flood and other extreme weather conditions by the Nigeria Meteorological Agency. It is based on this alert that the foundation is working to assist in strengthening of community actors, responders and stakeholders, especially women groups and farmers who are most affected.
In 2017, Ebonyi State began its response to the challenges posed by climate change through institutionalised process. First, the state established the Department of Climate Change, in the Ministry of Environment, to facilitate and coordinate responses.
“The impact of climate change in Ebonyi State is multi-dimensional. We see its effects on women. We see it on agriculture. We see it in the destruction of the physical environment and we also see it from the angle of livelihood as it affects women and people living with disabilities,” said Igwe Gabriel, head of Climate Change Department, Ebonyi State Ministry of Environment.
Ebonyi experiences heavy flooding, draught and massive heatwaves in certain regions of the state, as the impact of climate change deepens. In Ebonyi South, specifically, Afikpo North, most of the communities are usually flooded during heavy rains.
Afikpo North is the state’s biggest production hub for rice.
“In Afikpo South, particularly in Edda Local Government Council, the erosion in that region is massive. It is so bad that the local government was almost destroyed by erosion. The secretariat had to be relocated temporarily,” Gabriel said.
Ikwo LGA of Ebonyi Central is another heavily flooded area. Ofereikpe community, bordering Cross River State, is mostly flooded during rainfall. Agba community, in Isielu LGA, is notorious for land degradation mainly caused by deforestation.
The Sun Media Foundation in its climate change situational assessment tour of the state, observed that Abakaliki LGA, in Ebonyi North, mostly experiences heatwaves. Not much flooding is seen within the capital. However, in Effiom and Ogwopgo communities in Ohaukwu LGA, land degradation, erosion and deforestation are evident.
Impact of climate change on women
In reference to the climate change situational baseline survey impact on Ebonyi State, women are mostly affected by the outcome of floods, heatwaves and other manifestations of global warming. Women are in many cases financially impoverished compared to men. Women make up more than 90 per cent of smallholder farmers, but they do not own land.
Much of what they do is working for men who own the land. Women are directly impacted because of the low wages. In some places, women are hired for peanuts to till the ground and tend farmlands. Those who have land to cultivate always lose crops. It is either they don’t cultivate at the right time because of the erratic weather condition or they are dependent on the land owners because of the limited access to land.
Regina Akpueboko, 50, a widow with nine children, could barely cope with the impact of the 2022 flood. The scars could be felt in her voice: “When the flood destroyed my farmland, I felt that all my effort had been wasted. Thinking about it makes me bitter. It made me think a lot. Now, I am suffering from high blood pressure.”
In most of the communities in the agrarian state, women are the primary providers in the family. They are the caregivers to their children and the elderly. The vulnerability of women and children is high, especially when the income of the woman is low.
This impact is also observed in agriculture. Women make up to 90 per cent of smallholder farmers in many communities, hence, the pressure on physical, social and cultural norms is massive.
For the physical impact, land degradation is observed because of the constant use of land for farming. In the long run, the land wears out, producing only minimal yields. Also, the survival of crops is not guaranteed because of frequent floods, pest infestation and drought. All these factors greatly affect household resources, which in turn affect the livelihood and quality of life of children.
State’s response
The Ebonyi State Government, with support of international organisations, produced the state’s Policy on Climate Change, a document which provides a comprehensive guide to adapt to it through building of structures for resilience. Gabriel, the head of the Department of Climate Change, took The Sun Media Foundation on a journey from the introduction of the bill to the legislation of the climate change law.
“It was a success story that we, as a state, are very proud of, because it has now put us on a the right path to adapt and build resilience,” he said.
Though the state has a functional climate change law, enforcement is a challenge. Law enactment is insufficient to produce change. It only gives a legal framework to begin to build structures to initiate change. In the case of the Ebonyi State, there is a policy and another document, which provide guidelines for the application of adaptability. The only challenge is translating the document into field practice.
The Sun Media Foundation found a gap as well as an opportunity for the newly inaugurated government to invest more in people rather than in bridges at needless locations.
Physical infrastructure is critical in response to climate change resilience, but that should be supported with massive human capital investment, investment in knowledge, smart agriculture and capacity for the state’s first responders within the government and among stakeholders in the communities.
The Sun Media Foundation observed that there were no vehicles for the Climate Change Department to carry out its community outreach. Basic enablers were absent. The new administration should focus on the small actions that are needed to turn the big wheel.
For instance, the state must provide a clear road map for execution of its adaptation guideline. It must provide basic infrastructure and necessary needed incentives for the first responders to enable effective response.
If the state is able to plug effectively executing into its own adaptability guidelines, it will double agricultural production, reduce the impact of flood, enhance food security and improve the livelihood of people, thereby making the state productive and prosperous.
‘Climate change is killing us’
Benedicta Ekwuma lives with her sick husband. The man has been incapacitated for more than 10 years. The 63-year-old could not go back to her farm because of the extent of destruction during the 2022 flood.
Benedicta is the sole provider for her husband and seven children. Her day begins as early as 5:30am. She does nothing much than pray and hope. If it’s a lucky day, she’ll prepare breakfast from the leftover from the previous night. She has no need to prepare her children for school.
“The children are all grown and have abandoned me with their sick father,” she wailed. As soon as it clocks 6am, she begins a two-hour trek to the farm, where she works as a labourer.
“I will work from 8am to 5pm to earn N1,200. By the time I get back from the farm, my hips are hurting and my whole body is in pains.”
Benedicta is left with no option. She either serves as a labourer on a farm or returns to her own farm, which has remained a swamp dump. Her worries are many, but one pressing challenge is the leaking roof in her cracking mud house: “I need help to fix the roof. Anytime it rains, I get worried because the house will be flooded.”
In response to her cry for help, The Sun Media Foundation provided assistance for her to replace the roofing sheets.
I felt like dying – Ogba
Alice Ogba, 60, spoke as one who has reached her wits’ end. The strain in her voice tells her pains. Her children, seven of them, are unable to go to school. She could not afford the basics, uniforms, books and breakfast: “My children had to drop out of school, when my husband died many years ago.”
Her children are not even her major worry today. Alice has been managing high blood pressure since the destruction of her farm by excessive flooding.
“When the rain started and refused to stop, I had to prematurely harvest the remaining crops in my farm. It was so bad that I could only make N2,000 from the sale. When I saw the level of destruction of my farm, it was so overwhelming. That day, I felt like drinking poison. I felt like dying. It was not easy,” she said.
Flood destroyed all my efforts – Akpueboko
Regina Akpueboko, 50, had it all smooth, until the unpredictable rain began to mess up her farm. She owned her farm, unlike most other women. It was a 10-hectare parcel, where she planted cassava, groundnut and yam. She thought it was doing well: “It was from the farm that I got money to train all my children to school from cradle to university.”
Regina now only manages to farm on about two hectares of the land, because the land has turned swampy from the excessive flooding.
I thought the world had come to an end – Ibiam
The size of the flood was one Faith Egwu-Ibiam had never experienced.
“In my 40 years of life, I have never seen such level of flooding. It was as if the world was coming to an end. That is the only way I can describe the flood experience of 2022. It was terrible,” she lamented.
Faith has a large farm, about 10 hectares, where she plants yam, rice, cocoyam and vegetables. “I was doing well in this community. My children were going to school and feeding well, until the flood came and wiped out everything. It is now difficult to take care of my self and my children, feeding now is very difficult.”
The impact of the flood was so much, it blew off the roof of her house. So, she and her children had to relocate to a neighbours’ house.
“It was not easy moving my children and I to live with my neighbour, but I had to because the wall of my house fell,” she said.
