ABSTRACT

The increasing occurrence of natural hazards especially the weather-related extreme events in frequency and intensity across the globe calls for each region and nation to prevent residents in hazard-prone areas from being impacted by these hazards. Research investigations to explore how these residents perceive protective actions required of them and the hazards are critical to such efforts for effective environmental education interventions. The purpose of this research was to investigate the factors influencing the evacuation intention of River Niger coastal residents, who have consistently defied authorities’ directives to evacuate to safer grounds. Four (4) research questions were raised and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study.

A descriptive survey design was used in this study. The study population covered all the 143,815 households in the Four River Niger communities (Agenebode, Anegbete, Udochi, Udaba-Ekpere) all in Edo-North Senatorial District, Edo State, who have been directed to evacuate to safer grounds. Two of these (Agenebode and Udaba-Ekpere) were randomly selected for the study. A sample size of 384 respondents was reached with the questionnaire instrument, but only 358 of the retrieved items were fit enough to be used for the analysis, representing a 93% return rate. The research instrument was a self-structured questionnaire that was validated by three research experts, and a Cronbach’s alpha reliability of 0.872 was obtained after the validity. Frequency counts and percentages were used to answer the research question, and logistic Regression Statistics were used to test the hypotheses at a significance level of 0.05.

It was found that only 105 (29.30%) residents intended to evacuate to safer grounds, which is approximately 30%, whereas the remaining 253(70.70%) intended not to evacuate. Also, the findings indicated that socio-demographic factors such as community of residence, evacuation directive awareness, residential status, and ownership of transport gadgets