Daily Independent (Lagos)
Victor Ebimomi
2 July 2009
Lagos — For residents of Ibafon in Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government Area and its environs, the effects of the rain which fell on Friday through Sunday may continue tormenting them for a long time to come. It was like a re-enactment of Biblical flood of Noah's era.
Houses were submerged leading to destruction of property of which the value is to be quantified. Some people were completely sacked from their residents and they haa safer areas. The intensity of the damage caused by the flood that accompanied the rain was brought to the fore when the rain subsided on Monday. Household materials ranging from chairs, rugs, foams to even electronics were on display to be dried by the light sunshine. It was moments of lamentations and gnashing of teeth. Some of the victims made fervent calls on the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, to save their souls.
"Oga, help us tell Fashola what we are facing. Snap the picture of our compound so that he can see it and know what we are suffering", pleaded traumatised residents of a house on the neigbouring Kukoyi Street. Those living on the first floor of the one-story building were forced to abandon their bungalows and take refugee upstairs.
But the trauma was not limited to the people in this area alone. Almost every part of the state, including highbrow settlements, was worsted by the rain. At Ikeja, many areas were affected just as some parts of Apapa were no go area. As usual the Apapa-Oshodi expressway from coconut to Trinity was turned into waterloo causing vehicular breakdown. As at Wednesday stationary heavy duty vehicles were still trapped on the road. Commercial vehicles heading towards Mile 2 have to look for a detour vehicular movement has become a nightmare. Apparently, business activities from the ports have been destablised as haulage trucks find it difficult going out of the ports to their destinations. Also at Ogba-Ijaye road, movement was impeded around the Mobil filling just as parts of Okomaiko were turned into river. Ketu area also witnessed hellish flood while Egbeda residents are still leaking the wound of the torrential rain. Parts of Agbado areas such as Kola, Kazo and Amikale roads remain troubling to their inhabitants. To say the impact of the flood is still being terribly felt in some areas is like an understatement.
"We cannot know how much has been lost to the flood", a resident of Orile-Iganmu asserted.
But by far the worst incident caused by the rain was the collapsed of a two-storey building on Sunday at Iddo Railway terminus where several lives were lost. And investigations have also revealed that the cold and stress that came with the flooding sent many families to hospitals, with the children mostly affected.
The Lagos State Commissioner of Environment, Muiz Banire, however explained that was is been experience is not flooding per se but 'flash flooding' caused by rise in the sea level making it impossible for the rainwater to discharge into the lagoon instantly.
"There is no flooding as far as I am concerned. So far we are on top of the situation. Except for areas that are on wet land, we have surmounted problem of flooding in all the areas, except when there is a tidal lock and the intensity of rain is high. 80 per cent of our channels are functioning optimally and we do not envisage any problem at all", he said.
Following incessant flooding in Lagos, a decisive approach through the setting up of Drain Ducks was adopted by the administration of former Governor Ahmed Tinubu in the year 2000. As at today, it is on the field but is being run as a limited liability company and it does jobs for both the government and individuals alike.
Abiodun Apatira, the General Manager of the establishment maintained that one agency cannot handle the job of controlling and preventing flood in Lagos. He stated that there are primary drainage, secondary drainage and tertiary drainage, and they complement one another.
"If you work on one without working on the others, you will not achieve the desired result; that is the basic truth. As one agency is working on primary drainage, another one is working on secondary drainage, another one is working on tertiary drainage; all these complement one another. The major work of Drain Drucks is on tertiary drainage but if you see us working on secondary drainage, may be it was thought that we can effective work on it. On the issue of primary drainage, which is the canal, it requires sophisticated earth moving equipment, which only private sector firms can afford and work in that area is usually given out as contracts to multi-national companies" he explained.
Apart from Drain Duct, there is also the Emergency Flood Abatement outfit, which is an arm of the Ministry of Environment. It works mostly on secondary drainage. Thus the Lagos State Government has indeed been battling the problem of flood from all fronts. Fashola administration is doing a lot and some of the local governments are up and doing but there is no doubt that a lot still needs to be done and it should be in parripasu with enlightenment of the residents to always keep a clean environment. Only then, the losses occasioned by flooding when it rains will be reduced.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
