Floods bring Lagos people to tears

 

Her countenance changed immediately she bade her friends goodbye at the entrance of the junction leading to their house. Like a snail dragging its massive shell, her steps grew increasingly slower as she etched closer to the modest bungalow standing solemnly in a pool of flood on Baale Crescent in Thomas, a densely populated community along the expressway leading to Ikorodu in Lagos. 

After staring dejectedly for a few minutes and realising it was a helpless situation, 13-year-old Esther Akanni dipped her right foot first into the brownish and stagnant pool as she made for the doorway. Two minutes later, she stood at the tiny entrance leading into the house, soaked from waist down. Her grief grew even more.

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“I feel like just running away from this place,” the Junior Secondary School Three student told one of our correspondents, fighting back tears last Tuesday afternoon. “Several times whenever it rains heavily, I have had to miss school because the entire compound would be flooded and there would be no way to go out of the house. If it is during exam period, I usually put extra uniform in my bag because after passing through the water, the clothe I wear would have been soaked so I would rinse my body with pure water before wearing my uniform. Sometimes that one too would have been dirty before even getting to school, so I have to wear the other uniform in my bag.

“My parents are planning to put me in boarding school because of the way the flood stops me from attending classes. The only time I am really happy whenever it rains is when I am outside the house. But once I am coming back home, sadness fills my mind. I pray to God to bless my parents so that we can move away from this place,” she said, slowly pushing down her drenched uniform as she walked further into the apartment.

‘Receiving visitors now an embarrassment’

Two houses away on the same street, a young mother, Mrs. Oluwayemisi Adeniyi, told our correspondent how the constant flooding of the area as a result of heavy downpour and lack of functional drainage system is making life hellish for many residents like her. She said her children had spent most of the past weeks especially since the rains increased in intensity, at the houses of relatives who live outside Thomas for fear of their safety. She also disclosed that they no longer receive visitors in their home as a result of the pool of water in front of the house and the embarrassment it causes them.

“We feel embarrassed a lot of times when people come to visit us when the area is flooded. If a visitor calls that he or she is coming around, we usually tell them that we are not around so that we won’t feel embarrassed when they see the entire place messed up.

“Whenever it rains heavily, our entire compound is always flooded. During such periods, I take my children away from the house to stay with our relatives in other areas. I only stay at home with my husband,” she said. Adeniyi has lived in the area with her family for 10 years.

Another resident in the neighbourhood, Mrs. Comfort Obikoya, told Saturday PUNCH that the constant flooding of the area especially their compound is hampering their lives in no small measure. Though, the pavement leading into their house has been raised significantly to prevent water from getting inside the building whenever it rains, it has done only little in alleviating the pains the household suffers. To go outside their compound these days, Obikoya says they pass through a narrow foot path by the fence of the adjoining building.

“The flood is really disturbing us here. In fact, my children had to contribute money to raise the verandah of the house two years ago; if not, living here could have been tougher for us. Though, the water does not get into the house, it comes so close to the entrance of the building.

“Whenever it rains heavily and the compound is flooded, we pass through a narrow footpath by the fence of the next building to go out of our own house. Even when children are in the house, they don’t go beyond the verandah,” she said.

‘We no longer have peace of mind’

At nearby Ajegunle, another community along the axis, the situation is not completely different as residents lamented the effects of constant flooding of the area whenever it rains heavily. While most of the roads lining the community had been overtaken by pools of water when one of our correspondents visited the area, dozens of residential buildings also bore signs of damage especially with flood yet to fully recede in some compounds.

“Whenever it rains, we don’t have peace of mind,” Ayorinde Taiwo, a middle-aged man told Saturday PUNCH. “There is no functional drainage and good roads in this area and that has really contributed to making life hellish for us here during rainy season. At times when it rains for days, our children don’t go to school because there would be no road for them to pass.

“We are hoping that government would come to our rescue as soon as possible so that the suffering we pass through here would be reduced,” he said.

‘Rainfall is a curse to us, not blessing’

It is the same story at the Oworonshoki area of Lagos where tales of despair are told from house to house when Saturday PUNCH visited the place. For residents of the community, rainfall rather than being a blessing, is a curse to them – they dread it with trepidation.

“We don’t have use for televisions, VCD players or any such appliances,” 60-year-old Sarah Thompson said, showing one of our correspondents around the flood-ravaged apartment she shares with her 70-year-old husband, Olaniyi, on Omojoye Street, a very popular part of the area. “The constant flooding of the entire neighbourhood has also not afforded us the luxury of sleeping on our beds. Instead, we spread a wrapper on the table to sleep. The rains have damaged our beds and electronic gadgets several times and we feel there is no use replacing them,” Thompson said, slowly settling into a wooden chair outside the house. The place is a shadow of the beauty it once boasted of.

Inside the family’s living room were handful plastic chairs and boards meant to safely accommodate clothes and other valuables nailed to walls several metres above the floor to keep them safe from water. The floor looked pale and slippery– a testament to how frequent floods get into the building.

“We kept raising the pavement, hoping it would keep flood water out but it has not worked,” Thomson cut in. “Now, we have raised it so high that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to go inside the house without having to bend so low in order not to hit our heads on the lintel. When it rains heavily, we run to the church and stay there till it subsides. The church floor is a bit more elevated, so we are safer there than inside our house,” she said.

A tale of despair

(Photos: Odutayo Odusanya, Saheed Olugbon, Gbenro Adeoye, Eric Dumo and Tunde Ajaja)

A neighbour, Mr. Sesan Salawu, is not without his own troubles – many of his property have also been damaged by floods that constantly greet the area especially during seasons of heavy rainfall. A newly built wardrobe costing around N50, 000, is Salawu’s latest valuable to be destroyed by the water.

“I’ve abandoned the wardrobe outside because it is of no use to me again,” he said. “Water has completely damaged it. Some furniture items I recently bought for N60, 000 were also recently soaked. I’ve also lost a lot of my documents and important receipts to flood water. The situation is very painful because it seems hopeless.”

Many houses in the area have been deserted by their owners as a result of flood while vehicle owners now park them several streets away to prevent them from the rage of the furious waters. Mr. Dapo Ogunjimi, a resident of the community, told Saturday PUNCH that he has learnt not to take his car home on Unity Street during rainy season after a terrible experience some time back.

“I park at a safe distance and don’t mind trekking the rest of the way when returning home or going out. Only a fool will venture to take his car to some parts of this neighbourhood during rainy season,” he said.

A prominent community leader, Mr. Samuel Sodeko, while blaming the lack of functional drainages on the failure of the Lagos State and Kosofe Local Government authorities respectively, said everyday in the neighbourhood is like going head-on with a raging storm. He told Saturday PUNCH that they have simply been abandoned to their fate.

“Kosofe Local Government has completely abandoned us; if the local government can’t solve the problem, it should, at least, seek the assistance of the state government. A canal was built here recently but it has not helped much because our roads are terrible and there are no drainages,” he said.

A respecter of no class

But the flood this year has taken its fury beyond the mainland section of Lagos – the posh and high-class neighbourhoods of Victoria Island, Lekki, Ajah and Ikoyi – all in Lagos Island, have felt its fangs, too. Status, affluence, and class – the waters have spared nothing on its path across these areas. The devastation has since left many of these places deserted while the few who have remained, cling onto hope more than man’s intervention.

At the Victoria Garden City, Ajah, one of the neatest and exquisitely-structured of its kind, gloom is fast taking over the atmosphere as each heavy downpour leaves residents with fresh worries. Many of the posh premises remained flooded when one of our correspondents visited the place earlier in the week. Overflown verandahs, soaked living rooms, damaged furniture, appliances and other valuables; it is a case of the rich also crying. A plot of land here costs nothing less than N100m – the price of 20 units of three bedroom flats in the Ikorodu area of Lagos.

On Road 12 inside the estate, traces of last Saturday’s downpour across most parts of the metropolis were still visible wherever one turned to. While the reality contrasts with the assortment of wealth and affluence on display at every corner, there appears no answer yet for this annual ‘monster’ that is gradually turning VGC into a pale shadow of itself. Residents were seen counting their losses during our correspondent’s visit.

One resident who identified himself as Seun told Saturday PUNCH that occupants of some of the houses worst affected have since been relocating to other parts of the city to escape the nightmare.

“The rain was so heavy last Saturday that everywhere was flooded. The water reached my knees and we all had to be scampering for safety. In some houses, the water entered and destroyed electronics, furniture and other household items. The items you see outside some of the houses are the ones occupants were able to salvage. In fact, many people have been moving away from the estate because they are afraid of what could happen next,” he said.

A security guard on one of the streets in the estate told our correspondent that even though the flood had become an annual problem, this year’s version is leaving everyone deeply worried. He said the loss suffered in the last few days to the rains was unquantifiable.

“This is not the first time that flood would be taking over the estate, it happens all the time. If you were here last Saturday, you would have seen big men and women removing their shoes and rolling up their trousers just to get inside their houses. The destruction was so much and it would take time before many of those affected would recover. Flood is a serious issue in this estate. The roads and many houses are usually flooded after the rain, regardless of the millions of naira they spent on the pile foundation and in building the house,” he said.

While the rains unleashed venom on most parts of Lagos last Saturday, a resident of VGC had registered his rage on Twitter, drawing the attention of many social media users who were shocked to find out that even this exclusive preserve of the rich has not been spared by floods. The unnamed resident had tweeted, “I am an aggrieved resident of Road 12 at Victoria Garden City. We have been having flooding issues for over five years now. It keeps getting worse each year and after several complaints, the estate’s management is still turning deaf ears on us.

“On Saturday June 20, we experienced the worst. The entire first floor of my house has been wrecked. Please post the pictures to appeal to the estate management to sort out the drainage issues, especially on Road 12. It’s a shame for someone to say they live in VGC and yet be going through this.”

It was songs of lamentations for occupants of another high-end estate along the axis – Lekki Peninsular Scheme One, when Saturday PUNCH visited the area. Like at VGC, constant flooding caused by heavy rainfall has left devastating hallmarks all across the landscape here. Houses, walkways, major roads and recreational parks, nowhere is spared – the water has taken over. On Christ Avenue, off Babatunde Ajose, one of the worst hit sections of the estate, some residents who spoke with Saturday PUNCH said they cannot wait for the rains to be over as the season has caused them more harm than good and some have had to abandon their properties in search of safety.

A ruthless monster

Indeed like infernos, flooding has equally wrecked untold damage across most parts of Lagos in recent times. Apart from property damaged and roads affected, it has taken a few lives along in its deadly wake. Wednesday, June 10, a 12-year-old girl, Kehinde Popoola, was swallowed by a raging current of water at the Ejigbo area of the metropolis. Her body has yet to be found 17 days after that tragic incident.

In July 2011, around 25 persons, among them 11 children, were flushed to death by floods at Dopemu and Aboru areas of the city. Among the dead were occupants of a Toyota saloon car who attempted to meander their way out of the fast-running water.

In 2012, the National Emergency Management Agency said that 104 persons lost their lives while 50, 000 others were displaced during the floods that greeted the North Central part of the country. Director General of the agency, Alhaji Mohammad Sani-Sidi, put the loss of that disaster at N2.6 trillion.

A global trend

But flooding and the loss that comes with it is not peculiar to Nigeria – it is a phenomenon leaving communities with monumental losses in other parts of the world, too. In Tanzania for example, around 38 people died while 82 others were left badly injured when heavy rains and floods swept a part of the country in March. Also that same month, 14 persons were killed and 20 others left missing when flash floods rocked the northern part of Chile.

Earlier this month, at least 152 persons lost their lives in Ghana after a gas station explosion triggered by heavy rainfall in the capital, Accra, occurred. Many of the victims had been trapped by the resultant flood in the gas station when the tragedy happened. The West African nation has yet to fully recover from the loss.

A civil engineer, Samson Aremu, says that uncompleted and abandoned drainage channels in most communities across Nigeria must be fixed to avert further flooding and tragedy. He explains that the illegal dumping of refuse on the road and drainage channels is among factors fuelling the crisis in Nigeria.

“There are so many factors causing flooding in many Nigerian communities today. For example, if you move round, you would find a lot of abandoned drainages. If these were completed, they could have helped channel water into the lagoon and eased the sufferings people now face today.

“Also, most communities today do not have or follow a masterplan. People just build structures anywhere they find space. These, coupled with the indiscriminate dumping of refuse on the road and gutters, have combined to encourage flooding in most parts of the country today. I think government and its agencies must quickly address some of these issues before it becomes too late,” he said.

Our loss, their gain

But while residents count and live with their losses, waiting for the right kind of intervention to alleviate their pains, there are those whom the flood has brought glad tidings. For this tribe of young men, the floods present them with great opportunities to make quick money. Lurking around busy and flood-prone areas like Isolo, Ilasamaja, Igando and Abule-Egba, these young men push vehicles stuck in the water and also help pedestrians cross the flood on their backs for a fee ranging between N200 and N1000, depending on the service rendered and area in question. For them, business can’t be any better.

“To push a vehicle out of the flood, we usually charge N1000 if it’s a car and N1, 500 for a jeep. But if we are to back somebody to cross to the other side of the water, we collect N200 from men and N500 from women because women have to be handled specially and carefully. Last week Saturday my friends and I made close to N15, 000 working. We don’t wish the rains to stop because we make a lot of money during such period than at normal times,” Onyeka Maduka, 28, told one of our correspondents. He and a handful others now laugh all the way to the bank rendering this ingenious service at the foot of the Daleko bridge in the Mushin area of Lagos. For them, unlike many of the city’s residents whose lives have been greatly hampered by the persistent downpour, the rains are a blessing rather than a curse.