Stop blaming the rains: Cameroon must confront its flood crisis.

In Bamenda, topography, rapid urban growth, drainage challenges and settlement along vulnerable areas combine to create a dangerous cocktail whenever heavy rains arrive.

And every time the waters rise, the explanations are remarkably familiar: the rain was too heavy.it is climate change. it is an act of God. But there is a question Cameroon can no longer afford to avoid: why do predictable rains repeatedly become preventable disasters? Rainfall is natural. Flooding is not always inevitable.

When the same communities flood repeatedly, when the same roads become impassable, when the same drainage channels overflow and when families repeatedly lose homes and livelihoods, flooding ceases to be an unpredictable emergency. 

It becomes a government challenge. Limbe cannot keep drowning, Limbe's geography and heavy rainfall make it naturally vulnerable to flooding. But vulnerability is not destiny. The city needs sustained investment in drainage, watershed management, environmental protection, urban planning and flood early-warning systems.

The question is not whether Limbe will receive heavy rainfall. It will. The question is whether the city will continue to allow heavy rainfall to produce the same devastating consequences year after year. 

Municipal authorities must identify flood hot spots, examine drainage capacity, protect waterways and wetlands, enforce planning regulations and maintain infrastructure before the rainy season—not after disaster strikes.

Douala presents an even bigger lesson. A national warning. As Cameroon's economic capital, its exposure to flooding is not merely an environmental concern. It is an economic threat. When major roads and neighbourhoods are submerged, businesses cannot operate normally. Workers cannot move efficiently. Goods cannot circulate. Families lose property. 

Public infrastructure deteriorates. For a city that drives much of Cameroon's economy, flood management should be regarded as an economic-development priority, not merely a municipal sanitation issue. 

Douala needs integrated flood management based on drainage, land-use planning, waste management, wetland protection, infrastructure maintenance and climate adaptation.

Yaounde's expanding population and rapid urbanisation present another challenge. In fact, Yaounde cannot build itself out of nature. Construction without adequate planning can interfere with natural drainage systems and increase runoff. Hillsides, valleys, wetlands and waterways cannot simply be treated as empty land waiting for development. 

Urban expansion must be accompanied by proper zoning, drainage infrastructure, environmental safeguards and enforcement. A city cannot continuously destroy its natural systems and then blame nature when those systems eventually fight back.

Bamenda's physical environment makes proper urban planning particularly important. Its geography is not an excuse for inaction. The city and its surrounding communities face the combined pressures of population growth, urban expansion, inadequate infrastructure and environmental degradation. Flood-risk management must therefore go beyond clearing drains after heavy rainfall. 

Authorities must look at the entire drainage and watershed system, identify high-risk settlements and infrastructure, control development in vulnerable areas and strengthen community-based preparedness. Flood management must begin before the rain; not when the streets and neighborhoods are already underwater. 

What must our mayors Do?

Municipal Councils cannot continue to regard drainage and waste management as routine administrative matters. They are fundamental elements of public safety. Mayors should ensure that municipalities: map and regularly update flood-risk zones; construct and maintain adequate drainage systems; keep gutters and watercourses free of obstruction; protect wetlands, rivers and natural drainage channels; enforce building and zoning regulations; prevent construction in high-risk areas; improve waste collection and disposal; establish flood early-warning and emergency-response mechanisms; and publish clear plans and budgets for flood-risk reduction.

Economists and geographers or planners would agree with me that development without planning is not development. It is disaster deferred. Development without planning is not development. It is deferred disaster.

Regional Councils must think beyond municipal boundaries

Floodwaters do not stop at council boundaries. A river basin, watershed or drainage system may affect several municipalities. This makes flood management a regional responsibility as well. 

Regional Councils must bring municipalities and technical experts together to develop integrated environmental and flood-management strategies. Engineers, hydrologists, urban planners, environmentalists, civil-protection authorities, traditional leaders, communities and development partners must all have a place at the table.

Parliament must follow the money

Parliamentarians have another critical role: oversight. They should demand clear answers about public expenditure on roads, drainage, environmental protection and urban development. They should ask:

How much has been spent? Where has it been spent? Were projects properly designed? Were they properly executed? Who inspected them? Why do some infrastructures repeatedly fail? 

Are environmental and building regulations actually being enforced? And where public money has been wasted or projects poorly executed, who is accountable? These questions should not wait until another family has lost its home or another community has been submerged.

We must stop using climate change as a blanket excuse. Climate change is real, and changing rainfall patterns can increase flood risks. But climate change cannot become a blanket excuse for poor planning. 

Cameroon cannot control the clouds. But it can control many of the factors that determine how badly communities are affected. We can decide where people build. We can protect wetlands. 

We can maintain drainage systems. We can improve waste management. We can enforce town planning regulations. We can strengthen early-warning systems. We can prepare communities before disaster strikes.

The time for a national flood strategy is now

Nature brings the rain, government should determine to a significant extent, environmental damage that follows. Cameroon needs a coherent, long-term national flood-resilience strategy linking national government, municipalities, Regional Councils, Parliament, technical institutions and communities. 

Every major flood should trigger more than emergency relief. It should trigger an investigation: What happened? Why did it happen? What failed? What must be changed before the next rainy season? We cannot keep rebuilding the same roads, clearing the same drains, rescuing the same communities and mourning the same losses without addressing the underlying causes. 

That is not resilience. It is repetition and some unscrupulous businessmen and state officials are making illegal cash from this. Cameroon must move from reaction to prevention, from excuses to accountability, and from disaster response to risk management. 

The rains will continue to fall. We cannot stop it. But we can stop pretending that every flood is unavoidable. Cameroon must govern its flood risks before the waters rise.

By Moses Nyoh: he is Environmental Communication Specialist

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3876 of Wednesday August 12, 2026