By Enyeribe Ejiogu and Bianca Iboma-Emeluu
Almost four years after the plight of people in Alonge Island-Awoja in Iba Local Council Development Area was brought to the attention of the Lagos State government in 2017, the residents are still in lamentation.
The reports and an opinion piece published in Sunday Sun were so compelling that the then governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, sent a fact-finding mission to the place, which was led by engineers and other government officials, to evaluate the problem and know how to go about solving it.
The team undertook a full tour round the community with the television camera crew it brought along, and extensively interacted with the people.
Later, the residents sent a delegation in a follow-up visit to the Alausa seat of the Lagos State government, and got an assurance that the government would speedily attend to the environmental problem caused to the residents by another government project.
But the joy and hope of the people that succour would soon come their way evaporated when the former governor failed to secure a second term ticket, leaving the residents stuck in the agony caused by perennial flooding they have been experiencing for close to six years.
In response to the continued wailing of the residents, Sunday Sun made another visit to the area recently.
Taofeek Alonge, a veritable son of the soil, whose extended family owns the sprawling area, said that flooding was never a problem in the past as the island was a dry, solid ground though surrounded by a natural canal, through which floodwater used to flow freely into the lagoon and outwards to the ocean.
Similarly, Chukwudi Okafor, a professional tailor and Public Relations Officer of the Alonge Island-Awoja Community Residents Association, who acquired land in the place about eight years ago and later moved in with his family after developing his property up to a habitable stage, recounted how the flooding problem started.
“I have lived here for more than six years. We never had flooding issues before. As at the time I came to acquire land to build a small house for my family, people were already living here. In fact, our neighbour has lived here for close to 16 years. As I said, when I came here initially we did not have this problem. It started after CCECC, the Chinese company that constructed the LASU-Isheri road blocked a part of the canal at the point where it built a major bridge a short distance from Obadore, a community along the road. The canal surrounds Alonge Island and serves as a major channel for flood water to pour into the lagoon and outwards to the Atlantic Ocean.
“After the bridge was finished, the Chinese company did not fully reopen the canal. Since then, we have been experiencing long lasting flooding during the rainy season because floodwater flows back into the island and covers much of the land due to the blocked outlet to the lagoon and the ocean.
The flood comes up to our doorsteps. We have to wade through the water to get to the entry point to the canal, walking on a narrow wooden platform across the shallow part of the canal. That is the only way we get to Obadore community, a nearby and fast-growing settlement in Alimosho Local Government Area, which is just off the LASU-Isheri road,” Okafor said.
To make matters worse, there is no bridge across the canal entry point to the island. Sunday Sun learnt from Taofeek Alonge that in the survey plan for the area, space for a standard road was provided in the centre of the island which when constructed would connect the community with Ijagemo, Ijegun and Jakande Housing Estate in Ejigbo LCDA, through Isolo LCDA and on to the Oshodi Apapa Expressway.
The same proposed road would link Alonge Island with Obadore community across a very short concrete bridge which the residents have been waiting for the government to build, as promised by the administration of former Governor Ambode, but who could not get a second term.
A middle level civil servant in the Lagos State Ministry of Education, who works in Lagos Island and pleaded for anonymity, said painfully: “I have to leave home between 4:00 and 4:30 am every working day to be able to get to where I work. When I see the transformation going on all over Lagos Island, Victoria Island, Lekki and Ibeju Lekki axis, I weep for this rural area of Lagos. The tax I pay as a civil servant is developing the other parts of Lagos and paying for the railway, modern bus terminals and other infrastructure works that will make Lagos a megacity, but the same government has totally ignored Alonge Island where I live.
“When I look around and see the grievous situation we face here, I just wonder whether the candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have any moral right to come into this the community to canvass votes in 2023. We all have been supporting APC from the ACN days. By the same token, I wonder whether the conscience of officials of the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service can come here to demand payment of any tax, including land use charge. In fact, they may risk lynching in other rural communities suffering neglect the way we have been experiencing since CCECC turned our lives upside down and government has refused to come to our rescue.”
Asked to say what he would do if he were to see Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu stopover at Obadore Community while returning from a project inspection visit to Lagos State University, LASU, Taofeek Alonge spoke like the biblical Jacob, who tightly grabbed an angel and refused to allow the heavenly being to ascend until he received a blessing
He said: “Ah, I will prostrate to greet him. Then I will hold his hand firmly and drag him to the edge of the canal to see what we have been suffering for more than six years. I will beg him to open the file of our case which Ambode left on the executive table before leaving office and quickly save our children.
“I will tell him that the only way to end our agony would only come to an end when the canal is fully reopened to stop floodwater from taking over the community. Similarly, I will beg him to construct a road through Alonge Island to connect us with Obadore, Ijagemo and Jakande Housing Estate. I will also ask him to give us a health centre.”
Just like their counterparts in Alonge Island, residents of Era, Adaloko and other rural communities in Ajangbandi/Afromedia District of Ojo Local Government Area, Lagos State as well as those in Odofa, Ibiye, Magbon, Pure Water, Oko-Afoa and Ilogbo Eremin are deep in pain and hardship resulting from the dilapidated state of the inner roads and major road.
The residents who spoke with Sunday Sun said that the bad state of the road had made commuting unbearable for them, adding that businesses in the area had collapsed. Visits to the areas showed that the inner roads that link Adaloko to Era road and Adaloko to Afromedia are in a bad state. People living in this area have not felt government presence as development seems to be very far from them.
Residents said they have been abandoned by the government. A middle-aged POS operator in the area, Dominic, said that the road had been abandoned for over 20 years.
He added that during the rainy season residents and business owners usually experience hardship as the unpaved road becomes flooded and un-motorable.
“The road has really affected us, and it has been like this for two years or more. Adaloko needs government presence; there are no social amenities or infrastructural development. Power supply is very poor and there is no police station in the area,” he said.
A foodstuff trader in the area, Mama Favour, said that the epileptic power supply, usually affects frozen fish businesses in the area, saying that they either fry or dry the fish, thereby incurring additional cost that raises the price of the fish and also making people less likely to buy.
While conceding that the government is making effort to reconstruct the Badagry Expressway into a 10-lane highway, with a rail line, in pursuit of the megacity dream of the government, she argued that the government should equally give attention to the dilapidated inner roads.
“The inner part of Era road that can link to other communities is in a very bad state. It was destroyed by flood. The bridge is broken and stagnant water at that particular spot of the road is deplorable. Adaloko needs a motorable road and it should be tarred for easy access. The deplorable state of the road makes transportation cost very high,” she said.
Also, in Olorunda Local Council Development Area as well as Badagry Local Government Area through which the Lagos-Badagry Expressway traverses, for people living in Odofa, Ibiye, Magbon, Oko-Afo, Ibereko areas, bent vehicle rims and frequent flat tyres have become the regular experience of commercial vehicle drivers as one of them, Sunday Oluwole, told Sunday Sun.
Indeed, Lagos-Badagry Expressway from the Iyana-Iba axis has become drivers’ nightmare.
Aside Mile 2-Okokomaiko section which has been under reconstruction forever and still passable, the people’s greatest fear is the stretch from Iyana-Iba, Okokomaiko and Igbo-Elerin up to Badagry, which they said they do not know what the government’s plan for the stretch is in the near future.
Indeed a drive through the expressway from Igbo-Elerin Junction through Agbara, Oko-Afo, Magbon and Ibereko area, is a terrible daily experience for the people who, unavoidably, must ply the road.
Moreso, in Oriade Local Council Development Area, Edet who runs a tricycle (Keke) taxi service along Maruwa route, in Satellite town said: “This road has suffered terrible neglect. As you can see, several portions of the road have practically collapsed. There are some portions you will get to and you will have to come to a total halt. Especially, when traffic builds up and you end up spending hours on the road. You need to see how the underneath of Keke hits the ground when it rains because water covers the remaining concrete parts of the dilapidated road.”
Old Ojo Road, which is also in Oriade Local Council Development Area, is equally deplorable as the inner routes around Agboju down to First Gate have deep potholes.