Lagos State government has always been proactive, or so it seems, in handling most of the natural and man-made challenges it faces by reason of its peculiar circumstances or accident of its location as a coastal city.
When early this year the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET), in its 2020 Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP), revealed that Lagos was going to experience 240-270 days of rainfall with a maximum annual rainfall estimated at 1,750mm, the state was quick to respond to that scary prediction.
“Lagos is ready, no cause for alarm,” Tunji Bello, the state commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, assured at a press conference he addressed along with Joe Igbokwe, Special Adviser to the Governor on Drainage Services and Water Resources, as well as Lekan Shodehinde, Permanent Secretary, Office of Drainage Service.
The commissioner urged Lagos residents not to panic at the prediction, saying, “I want to assure you that our state will continue to reap the gains of planning, as our flood control measures are being stepped up to contain any unforeseen weather condition.”
On his part, Igbokwe also assured of measures being put in place to contain the expected flooding that will accompany the prolonged rainfall. “The forecast is 240 days of rainfall for Lagos; we are aware of it and we are working very hard on that.
“As the Special Adviser to the Governor on Drainage and Water Resource, I can assure you that we have been dealing with the canals. As I speak to you now, we have been dealing with the tertiary drains, primary drains and secondary drains,” Igbokwe said.
Igbokwe, who was a guest speaker at a Webinar on the impact of the predicted 240-270 days of rainfall on real estate hosted by Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Lagos Branch, admitted that it was the duty of government to take water away from the environment.
The special adviser revealed that they were working on 38 primary channels that are the biggest channels in Lagos, noting that they had completed 12, remaining 24 which are the big channels that will be channeled into the lagoon.
“For the secondary channels, we are working on 222; we have completed 146; 76 is ongoing so this is what we are doing right now,” he said, recalling that the state had had a couple of flooding issues in the past, because nothing was done to these channels.
Without a doubt, judging from the submissions and assurances of these principal officers in the state’s ministry of the environment, the state is preparing itself for the predicted unusual seasonal rains.
But the early morning heavy downpour of Thursday, June 18 (last week), punctured these inflated balloons; the down-pour put a spanner in the works the state and its officials say they are doing to ensure that the state, which prides itself as a mega-city with an aspiration to become a 21stCentury Economy, is insulated from the yearly ritual.
The incidents and experiences coupled with many unreported ones say it all that the state government and its officials have a lot more to do if the 240 days of rainfall prediction is anything to go by. The impact of the only two days of rainfall means that their best so far is not good or strong enough to tame nature when it bares its fangs and fury even for 7days.
The flood water also swept some debris in its path, causing some drains and drainage channels to become blocked. Residents of Ijesha in Surulere were seen dealing with this even as the flood continued to frustrate their efforts on the street connecting the area to Cele Bridge on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.
This means that the Office of Drainage Service has its work cut out for it. What the special adviser to the governor says they are doing or have done is just a scratch of the surface. They have to do more. It is not enough to ask the residents living on flood-prone areas to relocate.
Shodeinde explained at the Webinar that Lagos has flooding challenge because the city has experienced developments that precede governance—a situation where so many developers do their development prior to government approval.
For that reason, he said, developers that do not have building approval are more than those that actually have approval from the government before development. “It is like we are pretty catching up with development; areas that are low land would have been fully built up without any infrastructure built up for drainage or for you to advance any mitigations or measures to put in place for people to follow through to have a good life,” he noted.
This means that an inter-ministerial collaboration is needed and urgently too. The Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development should lead a discussion with the ministries of Housing, Environment, and Office of Drainage Service on how to save the environment and the residents from flood.
Thursday June 18 experience is not good to have a second time. It was a day Nature in its fury emptied its bowel in what was clearly a torrential down-pour that caused massive flooding in many parts of the sprawling city, throwing the entire city into confusion and panic. It was a day when flood was king on many roads and in many homes.
The early morning rain that continued till late afternoon, left homes and roads flooded, making movement difficult and impossible in some locations. The rain which started from the previous day, Wednesday, brought untold hardship to the residents.
Like most flooding incidents in Lagos, the flood that came with the Thursday torrential downpour did not only end at submerging roads, homes and communities. It also claimed life, injured many and destroyed properties. A four-year-old girl identified as Azeezat was reportedly swept off by the flood.
Azeezat was said to have been swept away at No 38 Fashola Street, off Olabode Street, Papa Asafa, in Orile-Agege area of the state. The incident, according to eyewitnesses, happened around 10am when the rain was still pounding hard.
Also, a pregnant woman and others narrowly escaped death, as they were rescued at No 26 Railway Line, Ashade Quarters, behind Guinness when four buildings collapsed in the area as a result of the rainfall and the attendant flood.
At No. 3 Sadiku Street, Alagba, Iyana Ipaja, a storey building suddenly collapsed during the downpour. The building which collapsed partially on Thursday consisted of 8 rooms, 23 shops and 1store.
Though both the mainland and island neighbourhoods in the state were affected, the island was worse off. In Lekki, for instance, almost the entire length of Admiralty Way was heavily flooded, causing a slow vehicular movement. It was the same story in other streets. VGC was also flooded.
In Ikoyi, there was very slow movement of vehicles along Osborne Road which was heavily flooded. It was the same story on Kingsway Road up to Falomo Bridge. Awolowo Road was also flooded, causing slow movement.
A similar scenario was noticed at Mile 2 Oke on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, as well as on Mile 2, inward Suru-Alaba on Lagos-Badagry Expressway.
Also not spared were parts of Ikeja, the state capital, including Awolowo Way, Oba Akran and Ikeja-Along on Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway.
In Alimosho, the largest local government area in the state, areas like Iyana Ejigbo, Idimu and Egbeda, driving inward Akowonjo, were submerged. Here, residents were seen bailing waters from their homes and calling on the government to intervene by desilting the gutters and opening up blocked drainages.
One of the residents in Egbeda area, who identified himself as Tunde Samson, said it has become an annual ‘ritual’ to be bailing waters from their homes every rainy season, blaming the situation on a collapsed drainage system around Vulcanizer Bus Stop on Akonwonjo Road.
According to Samson, efforts by the local government have yielded little or no result, adding that the state government’s intervention was urgently needed to address the situation.
At Mile 2 inward Suru-Alaba, several vehicles were seen wading through the heavy flooding on the reconstructed Lagos-Badagry Expressway. The situation was further compounded by the horde of articulated trucks and tankers competing for space on the expressway.
Motorists at the scene blamed the situation on what they described as poor construction by the contractor.
“This is a road that had just been reconstructed a few years ago yet we can’t drive through any time it rains. It shows there was something fundamentally wrong with construction work undertaken by the contractor,” a motorist at Mile 2.
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