•Residents must stop abusing the environment, says govt
By Tessy Igomu
South African poet, Oswald Mtshali, in his poem, Nightfall in Soweto, described the coming of nightfall as a “dreaded disease seeping through the pores of a healthy body and ravaging it beyond repair.”
Juxtaposing nightfall in Soweto, a South African slum during the apartheid period and the rainy season in Lagos State shows a unique similarity. This similarity leaves in its wake fears, pain and destruction. This is one phenomenon Lagos residents dread like a plague, especially those living in low-lying areas prone to flooding.
One of those areas easily ravaged by flooding is Oworonshoki, a boisterous, densely populated Lagos suburb. It is an area that shares close proximity with the Lagos Lagoon. For the residents, the horror of watching their homes submerged early into the New Year is one agonising memory that would linger in the mind for long.
While watching their property float around with reckless abandon, the disaster for them was a foretaste of what awaits them when the rains fully come in 2016.
As some of the residents who live in this flood-prone area waded through knee-deep water that had flowed into their apartments, all they could recount were tales of losses and likely pains of having to start life again from the scratch.
“Everything is gone,” lamented Friday, an artisan that just moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Oworonshoki with his new wife. Having just returned from his hometown, where he had gone to pick a bride, he had looked forward to settling down into a life of bliss. But that was not to be as the first rain that pelted the metropolis turned his fancy dreams into a nightmare.
“How do I start all over again? I don’t think I can cope with this situation. I might need to relocate my wife to the village for sometime till I get another place,” he said, his voice cracking.
Looking forlorn and distraught as he looked around his shop, which still bears signs of the destruction done by the rains last year was Linus Eze. The barber, who said he was yet to recover from the destruction done by flood to his business, wondered aloud when flooding, which had become synonymous with the Shogunle area, would become a thing of the past.
These scenarios aptly capture the pains and agony unleashed on some Lagos residents by the first rain of the year.
As many woke up in the morning of Tuesday, January, 19, 2016, to see a cloudy sky, they breathed a sigh of relief, as they could not wait to get reprieve from the scorching heat that had made life almost unbearable. But with the heaven letting down torrents of showers later, the sigh gradually turned to anguished cries, as homes became inundated by floodwater.
The rain which began in the early hours of the morning lasted for about an hour, but it was long enough to have deluged homes and devastated property. The accompanying flash floods left some parts of Lagos waterlogged.
For most people, the first rain of the year is seen as a sign of blessing and foretaste of good things. But in this instance, the havoc wreaked by the shower left a bitter after-taste.
Alhaja Alimotu Shoga, a footwear seller in Oshodi, said although she never knew the rain would come this early, she was glad it did. To her, the rain not only helped to temporarily relief her and others of the excruciating heat they had endured, but it also cleaned the neighbourhood of filth.
“My neighbourhood of Shogunle was a bit flooded and filled with dirt brought out from the drainage. It was not a good thing to see. I only want to plead with the local and state government to ensure the drainage and canals are cleared to prevent the usual flooding we experience in our area,” she pleaded.
In Lagos, the darkening of the clouds usually signals a period of trauma and anguish. It is also a time when school children in flood-prone areas embark on compulsory holidays to avoid being washed into the canals or drowned in flooded classrooms. The thought of wading through knee-length puddles, bailing water endlessly, losing valuables, and in most cases, lives, sets many Lagos residents on edge.
For most families, living in flood prone areas like Shogunle-Oshodi, Iyana-Oworo, Bariga, Ajegunle, Agiliti, Majidun, Ogunoloko, Ijesha, Aboru, Okokomaiko and some other areas during the rainy season means complete relocation to avert catastrophe. For them, any sign of rain is dreaded and viewed as near calamity.
Parts of Ikorodu, Agege, Ikeja, Ojota, Oworonshoki, Apapa and Surulere that witness perennial flooding still depend on street urchins to ferry them across the flood for a fee. Improvised canoes have also emerged for crossing the ‘lagoon’ that materialises in such areas during the rainy season.
From one part of Lagos to the other, unpleasant experiences of horrifying flooding abound. Even the upscale areas are not spared the dirge as they are imprisoned in their homes by flood.
Despite the importance of the rainy season to humans, it portends more harm than good to Lagos as a coastal state. Experiences with rains, especially of late, definitely gave Lagosians an insight to what awaits them when the rains finally come and the season enters its bloom.
The rainy season does not only portend traumatic experiences for Lagosians, it also dislocates the social and economic fabric of the metropolis.
For commercial bus operators, the rainy season is a boom for their business as they increase their fares astronomically on all routes. For commuters desperate to get to their destinations, arguing over fares on a drizzling, wet day is like fighting over a lost cause.
With the rains, the lives of motorists plying the busy Oshodi-Apapa expressway, especially between Berliet, Ilasa and Sadiku bus stops, becomes more endangered. This is due to the flood that constantly takes over the already deplorable stretch. The flood not only causes heavy traffic and total gridlocks, sometimes, snarl, fearful accidents also occur, especially when trucks laden with containers fall on their sides and in most cases on vehicles, after running into craters that dot the area.
Flooding, according to the relevant authorities, has always been man-made and unless Lagos residents desist from their habits of defacing the environment, they would always be hunted by the monster-flood.
Dumping of waste in waterways and drainages, Daily Sun discovered, is one habit that many Lagos residents are not ready to give up. Even the barricading of major canals and waterways which snakes through most densely populated areas because of the danger they pose, did not stop the practice. At the moment, recalcitrant residents have cut through most of the wire meshes erected by the Lagos State Ministry of the Environment, under the Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola administration, as a measure to curb the act.
Canals in areas like Oko-Oba, Shangisha, Oke-Afa, Obalende, Bariga, Gbagada, Ajegunle, Magodo, Surulere and Yaba, over the years, have proved to be very dangerous to both structures and humans. Anytime it rains, they overflow into homes. Many times, they sweep humans into their bowels. Even months after the rains, structures around the canals remain submerged, raising the possibility of building collapse.
But with most of the barricades removed by residents who have continued their indiscriminate dumping of refuse, the consequences of such actions could only be imagined when juxtaposed with warnings about torrential rainfall from experts due to climate change.
Lagos residents have blamed the indiscriminate dumping of refuse in waterways on the inefficiency of the body set up to evacuate waste and the high cost of patronising them. This, they said, leaves them with no choice than to patronise cart pushers or do the obvious – empty them into the drains.
Lagos residents are appealing to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to take more practical steps that would forestall future damage to lives and property.
Speaking on the flood situation in the state and the possibility of flooding, the Lagos State Commissioner for Special Duties and Inter-governmental activities, Mr. Seye Ogundejo assured that the usual apprehension of Lagosians before the rains might be unnecessary. “The state government is trying rigorously to control the incident of flooding to ensure a conducive and safe environment,” he said.
He noted that flooding of any part of the state remains a top emergency case, as it involves the lives and property of the citizenry. He added that in any flooding situation, the state government wastes to time to activate prompt rescue responders to the scene.
Oladejo disclosed that steps were being taken by the government to ensure that areas susceptible to flooding do not witness the calamities that usually follow heavy rains. He said the government had embarked on the regular evacuation and carting away of silt from drains as well as construction of new drainage channels for storm water runoff.
He, however, maintained that a flood-free Lagos could only be collectively achieved by all, adding that Lagos residents, as a matter of utmost expediency, should desist from abusing the environment by dumping refuse on water bodies and drainage channels.
“Our drainage channels, lagoons, rivers, streams and wetlands must be kept clean of all forms of waste such as solid, sewage, liquid, domestic or industrial. People should desist from building structures along the drain alignments or compromising drainage structures,” he said.