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IT was in the evening, after a downpour that lasted for less than one hour, thousands of residents and motorists were seen having a hard time making their way through a large pool of water that had cut an entire expressway into two.
That was at Ojuore area of Ogun State, which is just a few metres away from Sanngo Ota, which is highly regarded as one of the economic nerve centres of the state.
Water reaching knee level in some sections was seen covering the entire express road leading to Idiroko area of the state.
Saturday Tribune which monitored the development witnessed chaotic traffic situation that made hundreds of people to be stranded at various bus stops, while many others were seen wading through the murky water on the road.
But, according to information gathered, the problem has been in existence for years while all pleas made by residents for the government to fix the problem seem to have always fallen on deaf ears.
A businessman at Ojuore, Mr Martins Elero, complained to Saturday Tribune that rainy season always brought untold hardships on everyone around, especially traders, who he said often have their businesses crippled as a result of water flooding into their shops and stalls.
“We always experience this problem every time it rains heavily. The road on both sections become heavily flooded and it is not uncommon to find water flooding into our shops. During such periods, business activities become totally paralysed while traffic gridlocks become the order of the day,” he lamented.
This was corroborated by another resident of the area, who identified herself as Mrs Ayomide Usman. According to her, the problem seems to have taken a turn for the worse in recent times when the state government started embarking on massive road dualisation and expansion in that region.
“Since the road expansion exercise began, all drainages around here have broken down. Therefore, anytime it rains, there will be no way for flood water to flow, except on the roads, thus making them to be always flooded after a downpour,” she stated.
In the neighbouring Lagos State, before the rainy season commenced in full, the state government had used the dry season to put measures in place to prevent flood. Money running into millions was spent in flood-abating exercises that included drainage clearing, canal expansion, de-silting of major waterways as well as demolition of structures perceived to have been illegally constructed along waterways.
However, the advent of the rainy season seems to have made mockery of such exercises, as recent developments suggest.
There seems to be no respite yet for millions of hapless Lagosians who are often made to experience a lot of hardship whenever it rains, as experts have also fingered unavailability of basic infrastructure, especially good roads and effective drainage system as one of the causes of runoffs finding their way to major roads.
It is not uncommon to hear news and stories of mishaps in different parts of the state soon after a downpour, and according to public opinion, this development seems to have made an average Lagosian to be easily overwhelmed by an air of uncertainty anytime it rains.
Some of the hardships residents are often made to face during a downpour can therefore be summed up as: water flowing into people’s houses, roads getting flooded (by far, this has been adjudged as the most common features of downpours in Lagos), as well as massive gridlocks.
A downpour recorded in parts of Lagos State in recent weeks caused massive flooding of major roads by rain water, a development that made motorists as well as pedestrians to have a hard time travelling on such roads.
Worst hit in recent days were parts of the Wempco Road, Ogba, where scores of people were seen struggling to waddle their way through murky flood water. There were also tales of woes at other parts of Lagos, including Oke Odo area of the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway area of the state, where an entire road was recently submerged with water.
Observation made by Saturday Tribune showed that street urchins, popularly known as Area Boys, often use the rather sad development to milk money from hapless motorists whose vehicles had broken down at various spots on the ever-busy road as a result of runoff. This was on the pretence of helping the affected motorists to push their vehicles out of the puddle on the road.
Needless to say, this situation snowballed into massive gridlocks on the road, and it eventually spilt over to other roads in Ikeja.
While narrating her ordeal to Saturday Tribune after the downpour, Miss Victoria Uju, a worker at Computer Village area, revealed that despite her phobia for commercial motorcycles popularly known as okadas, as well as government’s ban on the activities of okada riders in many parts of the state, she was very desperate and even praying to find any. This, according to her, was as a result of the fact that no single commercial bus was on ground to take her to her destination, which was Sanngo.
“The crowd on that day was massive and everyone was trooping like ants to their destinations, since there were no buses coming. Despite the fear I always nurse for taking okadas, I was even praying for one to come by, but none did. It’s a day I won’t forget for some time, because I had to trek from Agege to Abule Egba Bus Stop, before I eventually got a vehicle. By the time I got home in the night, I was too tired to do anything meaningful. All I could do was to take some painkillers and go to bed, since I had to wake up early the following day to prepare for work again,” Miss Uju narrated.
Uju’s ordeal is not different from those of many others who are often made to go through such hardship all in a bid to put food on their tables.
Similar to the young woman’s experience is that of an operator of a tricycle popularly known as Keke Marwa, who was spotted by Saturday Tribune while trying to revive his broken-down tricycle right in the middle of a puddle at Ago-Palace way at Okota.
“This hardship is too much. Anytime it rains, life becomes extremely difficult. Many of us often have to park our tricycles somewhere for fear that they could break down, because the roads, which have for ages been in a terrible shape, often become worse after downpours.
“Not all of us have jeeps. We, therefore, call on the government to come to the grassroots, look at our plights and provide for us one of the things we crave most from the government– good roads,” the tricycle operator lamented.
Similarly, in other places such as First Rainbow Bus Stop on the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, it has become a recurring decimal to see runoffs submerging an entire road or a section of it. Vehicles often break down while trying to make their way through pools of water, while it is a common sight to have pedestrians waddling through puddles with rolled up trousers and shoes held in their hands.
The Lagos State government has in the meantime continued to link flooding after downpours to blocked drainages, which it has also attributed to people dumping refuse in drainages as well as the act of construction of unapproved structures on waterways.
The government, through the Ministry of the Environment, has therefore not ceased to call on Lagos residents, particularly those who engage in such act to stop this habit so as to reduce incidents of flooding in the state.
When restating its readiness to reduce rain-induced floods, the Ministry, in a recent statement signed by its Public Relations Officer, Mr Fola Adeyemi, said it had put in place measures to ensure safety of lives and property of Lagosians throughout the duration of the rainy season.
The statement said the Commissioner for Environment, Mr Tunji Bello, had started monitoring the mid-rain cleaning programme embarked upon by the Drainage Maintenance Office and Emergency Flood Abatement Unit of the ministry.
The ministry also assured Lagos residents that the state government would sustain its all-year maintenance and cleaning programmes as well as ensuring that major canals and channels were kept clean to allow free flow and discharge of water whenever it rains.
“Lagos is a coastal state that is susceptible to flash flood anytime it rains,” Mr Adeyemi said in the statement.
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Reblogged this on CraigM350 and commented:
A very interesting story, thanks Yamkin. Shows the need to continually invest in infrastructures to cope with an ever changing climate…as our ancestors have done for millennia. We may get long benign periods but it’s sheer lunacy to believe that it will last or that we can keep it that way.
Only one new reservoir was built in London in the last 100yrs despite the droughts at the turn of the century. Building more makes better sense than throwing all our eggs in the perpetual ‘Mediterranean’ droughts scenario basket which has now morphed into whatever Slingo decides to link to more ‘moisture in the atmosphere’ (I.e. whatever weather we have that causes some degree of hardship – that’s it! Flooding? More of that. Cold? More of that. Heat? More of that. Saharan sands? More of that. Flying pigs? More of that…and it’s all your fault! )
The old way in years of plenty, years of famine – we prepared for the reverse. It makes more sense than believing that keeping CO2 under 450ppmv (I thought it was 350 – hence my somewhat ironic moniker) will avert a litany of apocalyptic scenarios that exist only in the minds of a doom cult who just happen to be paid by the prophesy.