EDITORIAL NOTE
This Solutions Journalism investigation is centered on connecting the dots between climate stress, floods, extreme heat, and new pathways to restoration in Maiduguri, North East, Nigeria.
Investigation, Reporting, and Writing by: Eden Benibo, Solutions Journalist and Editor, Hello ICON Magazine
Published: June 5, 2026, World Environment Day
Source: Edidiong Ebitu
Connecting The Dots: 10 Years of Climate Stress
North East Nigeria is known for one story: insecurity. From the early years of Boko Haram to today’s road and village attacks by “unknown gunmen.”
But there’s another story that ran underneath it for a decade. Climate stress. On human health: bodies. On education: schools. On livelihoods: shops and farms. On decisions to stay or leave.
Edidiong Ebitu, before he relocated from Maiduguri, Nigeria, to Togo for safety, greener pastures, and more adventures.
This is the story of Edidiong Ebitu.
“Before moving to the North, I was living in Akwa-Ibom State, Nigeria. I left my biological parents when I was about 13 years old to live with my foster mum,” he told Hello ICON Magazine.
When it came to choosing a university as a young adventurous teenager, he made a choice that left his family in panic.
“I chose the University of Maiduguri without the knowledge of any of my family members. Although my foster mum did all she could to try to stop me from going that far, the adventurous soul in me resisted by all means. Unsure of what the future held, I just wanted to go to a place far from home. Far from the life I have always known.”
He resumed at the University of Maiduguri on January 11th, 2014.
He didn’t know what that year would bring.
“Same year shortly after I resumed, we had the Chibok Girls Abduction. That was the first serious heat. Then we also had Giwa Barrack Attack at the heart of Maiduguri. Although there had been other mushroom attacks in the villages but this was the first one I experienced. I vividly remember the gunshots and all.”
So Began The Real Adventure
Edidiong came looking for a new life and met war first.
Climate hazards came next as a more “silent killer”, and unlike the gunmen, it stayed longer in every classroom, every market, every home. At scale, this is the lived reality across communities in Maiduguri.
Before he finally relocated to Togo for safety and “greener pastures,” while maintaining his adventurous spirit away from home, Edidiong lived in Maiduguri from 2014 to 2024. Ten years. Long enough to see weather turn into a weapon.
The hidden cost of that decade is what this report documents: the pain points, the lived experience, and the shared reality of underserved communities in Maiduguri who are dealing with both conflict and climate.
When Weather Becomes Survival
For Edidiong, a storm is not just weather. It is a fight for survival.
This is how Edidiong lived it:
“These days, I see people treat climate hazards like it’s something new. But for the past 10 years I lived in the North East, extreme weather conditions have been a reality. In the North, specifically in Maiduguri Borno State, we have extreme weather conditions. When it is cold, it is very cold, and when it is hot, it’s extremely hot. When it is rainy, we have sand storms before the rain.”
That sets the baseline. In Maiduguri, weather swings to extremes and sand storms announce the rain.
The harm is not only in big disasters. It is in the daily dust and the waiting.
“When the sand storm comes around, no matter how you close your house, the whole house will be dusty. You have to do a clean up afterwards. The sand storm is one of the things responsible for a lot of blind folks in the North, because if it catches you outside and you are not protecting your eyes very well, the whole dirt is in there.”
The dust doesn’t dirty homes. It takes sight.
Eye damage and blindness from repeated exposure is part of the burden.
This is what it feels like in the middle of a sand storm:
“The sand storm comes like a thick brown cloud. You can’t see before, and if it passes you, you can’t see after. If you’re in it and it passes you, you turn dusty immediately.”
Edidiong learned the hard way:
“One time I was caught in the sand storm, it took my bicycle. I had to hold a tree and as I was holding the tree, a branch fell from the tree. It’s actually always disastrous because of how strong the wind is, it can uproot trees sometimes. Trees literally fall like someone was digging them up, that’s how strong the wind is. I remember an incident where trees uprooted by the wind landed on people’s vehicles. If your cars are packed outside and it’s not in a garage, then sorry.”
That wind is not just inconvenient. It’s strong enough to uproot trees and turn an ordinary day into danger.
Source: Edidiong Ebitu/ TikTok: Ali_casmk
The institutional damage was just as bad.
He remembers 2015 specifically:
“In 2015, I witnessed a sand storm that came and covered the majority of the roofs on the University campus. I stayed in University of Maiduguri Campus and I saw lecture theatres with roofs torn off by the wind. Even a new Senate building roof was removed by the wind. Almost 80% of the roofs in the University campus needed roof repair immediately.
At some point, the University had to relocate residents in the University quarters to the University guest house until the roofs were renovated.”
That’s climate stress hitting education. When roofs go, classes stop. When residents are moved to guest houses, normal life stops.
Eco-Grief: When the Land Turns Against You
Beyond headlines, climate change means eco-grief and eco-anxiety. It means watching the land you depend on become hostile.
“The sun comes out as early as 5am to 5:30am. It increases dehydration death rate. The sun itself is so heavy. If you keep wet clothes outside, in a very short time, the heat dries it.”
Edidiong believes human activities and local governmental negligence affected the climate in Maiduguri, Nigeria.
That weight is what he carried every morning before he migrated. The grief of a place that no longer sustains you. The anxiety of planting knowing the rain may destroy what little you have.
For farmers, the pattern is cruel. Months of dryness, then a downpour too violent to help. The soil cannot hold it. The harvest is lost before it begins.
“The wind is followed by rain and ice droplets. If the wind enters your house, it covers it with dust. The rain in the North doesn’t come often. Sometimes, it comes 4-5 times in a year. But whenever it comes, it causes havoc. It floods farms, crops die.”
The Breaking Point: Flood, Collapse, Insecurity
Then came the day the water had nowhere to go.
Edidiong explains the engineering problem behind the flooding:
“Everytime, there is always flooding here because whenever the Alau Dam is filled up, it is opened and it flows through Maiduguri metropolitan community. This is a dam connected from Lake Chad.”
When that release meets 4-5 violent rains a year, the city drowns.
“The rain of 2024 was so heavy that the dam collapsed. The whole of Maiduguri was flooded, and people were rendered homeless. It was just humanitarian organisations that came to the aid of people using canoes to access people houses so they don’t get drowned,” he said.
The flood did not stop at homes.
“The flood also got to the zoo, bringing out crocodiles, snakes, and all those reptiles by the roadside. It pushed down one of the prison gates in Maiduguri, and the inmates escaped. This brought increased insecurity and insurgency.”
In that flood, the lines between climate, health, and security disappeared. Homes were underwater. Wild animals were on the streets. A broken prison gate added fear to an already traumatized city.
Forced Migration: The Only Choice Left
After 10 years, Edidiong left. Not because he wanted to, but because staying meant risking death by sun, storm, or flood.
He tried to build a life there first. Finished school and stayed to work.
“After school, I worked in Yobe State, Damaturu and Borno State, Maiduguri before I finally migrated.”
He worked in two of the hardest hit states in the North East. He watched the weather get worse year by year and still stayed. Until the cost of staying became higher than the cost of leaving.
His story mirrors what is happening underserved urban and rural communities across Nigeria. Climate stress breaks livelihoods, and people move. The difference is the hazard. While for some it’s: heat, dust, and flood. For some others it’s: gas flares, acidic rain, and rising seas.
In all, the outcome is the same, forced migration, empty schools, and elders left behind.
Migration is not failure. It’s what people do when the land turns against them and no one builds a better system.
New Pathways to Restoration
Edidiong’s 10 years are data. They tell us what adaptation must look like.
He now lives in Togo, where he works as a teacher. While his experience in Maiduguri taught him resilience, the contrast between the two systems showed him what adaptation and real-time solutions actually look like.
“Now I live in Togo. Instead of water flowing to people’s houses, there is a well planned irrigation system that channels it properly.”
That one line reframes migration. It’s not just escape. It’s exposure to a different way of managing water.
In Maiduguri when the dam is full they open it and the water runs straight into communities. In Togo they built channels. They planned for where the water should go before it falls. That’s the difference between surviving a season and losing a home to it.
Solutions Beyond Resilience: Pathways to Adaptation
1. Early warning systems: Storms and floods, delivered in local languages, so people know when a sand storm or dam release is coming.
In 2024 the Alau Dam was opened with little notice. Communities woke to water inside homes. Experts say alerts via radio, SMS, and community leaders in Kanuri and Hausa 48 hours before a release could reduce displacement. Information is infrastructure.
2. Climate-resilient housing: Structures that can hold against wind that uproots trees and rain that rips off roofs.
Most housing in Maiduguri was built for a drier climate. Mud walls collapse under heavy rain. Zinc roofs are torn off by wind. Updated building codes, stronger foundations, and roof anchoring are needed to withstand current weather patterns.
3. Water management: Channels that direct rain and dam water through irrigation, not into houses and farms.
Togo uses planned channels to direct water. In Borno, drainage is limited and dams are released as emergency measures. Water management specialists point to irrigation networks, drainage systems, and controlled release schedules as ways to keep water out of residential areas.
4. Livelihood alternatives: To ensure farmers do not lose everything in one downpour.
A single flood can wipe out a season’s crop and years of investment. Agricultural economists note the need for crop insurance, storage facilities, processing, and off-season employment so that household income does not depend entirely on rain-fed farming.
Restoration starts with listening to people like Edidiong and funding what they already know they need.
Migration is not failure. It is evidence.
Edidiong left the North East to survive. Millions in the Niger Delta are asking the same question he did: “What future am I giving my child here?”
Until we connect the dots between climate stress and human movement, and fund the pathways to restoration, the answer will keep being: leave.
