Residents of an estate known as Lekki Palm Estate in the Ajah area of Lagos State have raised the alarm over persistent flooding of their neighbourhood as a result of uncontrolled development activities by real estate investors.
The residents at the weekend took to the street, protesting the activities of a particular property development company called Henry Montego Homes which is developing a residential facility within the estate and causing heavy flooding that has submerged homes and streets.
They recalled that following the refusal of the developer to do the right thing after several meetings with him, they decided to invite relevant government agencies such as Ministries of the Environment and Water Resources; Physical Planning and Urban Development, and Lagos State Building Control Agency, to intervene.
The residents, who were angry that the orders of the government agencies to the developer to stop work until the drainage issue was sorted out were not obeyed, noted that the developer took advantage of the Covid-19 lockdown to rush buildings because there were no government officials to monitor him.
They said that their efforts at the Secretariat in Alausa over the matter have proved fruitless so far, as no sanction has been served on the developer, making him have his way. They alleged that government officials who visited the estate and told the developer to stop work have suddenly developed cold feet.
To press home their anger, the protesting residents blocked access roads to the estate with vehicles to prevent vehicular movement in and out of the estate, stressing that they had had enough of the lawlessness of the developer who, they alleged, was building on drainage channel and causing the regular flooding in the estate.
The protest, which lasted for a couple of hours, paralysed activities within the estate as site workers and trucks carrying sand to various construction sites could not access their destinations.
“Enough is enough of Montego Homes,” yelled a resident who introduced herself simply as Tolu. She explained that “for over six months now, our street has been flooded; we can no longer walk on the street without putting on rain booths, nor can we stay in our homes because they are flooded; our waste water has nowhere to go because the pipes have been damaged by construction activities.”
Tolu noted that mosquito bites had caused her typhoid fever for the first time in her life as a result of the flooding of their street. She recalled that the estate had never experienced flooding, but has started doing so with the housing project by Montego Homes.
A visit to the construction site showed that, truly, the developer was building on drainage alignment, thereby obstructing the flow of waste water into the lagoon as contained in the layout of the estate.
Efforts to reach the developer on phone were not successful as his number was not reachable.
It was learnt that there were other developers in the estate from whom the residents bought their houses, but only Montego Homes did not follow the drainage system put in place by the first set of developers in the estate, because that would affect its land.
“The developers who sold houses to some of us in the estate had already constructed drainage channel round the estate but Montego Homes came and blocked this channel and the result is the flooding we are now experiencing in the estate,” said another resident who did not want to be named.
“When we first noticed the implication of the developer’s action, we drew his attention to it, and he promised to construct another drainage channel that would take water backward. We told him that was not going to be possible because of the topography of the land,” the resident added.
According to the resident, the developer knew that the land he bought for his housing project was part of drainage alignment, but because he was looking for more land, he decided to build on the drainage channel in order to gain more land.
