…Where rainy season is like a curse

  • Dwellers of flood-prone areas ignore warning of looming disaster

By HENRY OKONKWO and LAWRENCE ENYOGHASU

Whenever it rains, Oyekunle Street in Bariga area of Lagos metropolis becomes a labyrinth of mud and murk. The entire area spanning Oworo-Third Mainland Bridge axis and beyond becomes an eyesore and reeks of malodorous filth, when the rainwater flows furiously through the canal, bursting across and flooding the shores.

The horrible sight that confronts a visitor is that of floating heaps of garbage and faeces  emitting putrid smell all over the marshy environment. You stand the risk of having the ground cave in beneath you, if you stay too long on a spot.

In the midst of this strip of squalid locality are clusters of humble tenements inhabited by several hundreds of families with little children. Tucked in several corners of this slum are churches and mosques thronged by the swamp dwellers apparently to take care of their spiritual needs.

This sleazy picture, is, however, not peculiar to Bariga community. It is common to other slummy parts of Lagos, including Ilaje Bariga, Ijora Badiya, Ikorodu, Owode-Onirin, Owode-Elelede, Ayobo-Ipaja, Agboroko, Iba, Igbolerin, Araromi, Coker Village, Amukoko, Ojo, Ajangbadi, Badagry, Maza-Maza, Ijegun Isheri, Agbado, Akute, Agege Mende-Maryland, Iwaya, Jakande Estate, Oke Afa, Ejigbo and Bucknor area in Ejigbo. For residents of these places, the rumbling of the thunder and gathering of the clouds in the skyline is bad news.

In the past two weeks that had seen continuous rainfall, residents have been overwhelmed battling with floods which invaded their homes and streets.

Complaints of neglect

Their experience is a perennial reminder of the neglect they suffer from government.

“Every time it rains here, the whole area becomes flooded”, Mrs. Ajayi, a resident of Ajangbadi, bemoaned in an interview with Saturday Sun. The reporter met her frantically scooping water out her house with a bucket. “One of our biggest problems is that the  flood encourages the breeding of mosquitoes, they don’t let me or our children to sleep at night. Also, we have to keep our valuable property like television, clothes and foodstuffs in the ceiling until the water recedes, because most times the water enters our houses,” said Mrs. Ajayi.

Sometimes life gets so precarious as some of the houses are submerged.

Mr. Sunday Awosu, a resident of Atiporomeh in Badagry, described the ordeal of residents in his neighborhood as terrible. The floods, he said, constrained inter- community movement. According to him,  during the rainy season, the three access roads in and out of his community are usually rendered impassable. “We fear each time it rains heavily, because a major flood disaster can be fatal,” he warned, adding: “That’s why we are calling on the state government to come to our aid, especially in the area of building roads and drainage channels here.”

Similarly, Chief Waheed Agiri, the Baale of Orile Bariga, lamented the poor state of drainage channels and the deplorable state of many of the roads, which he said, were to motorists and pedestrians alike a nightmare, especially after the rains. He blamed the incessant flooding on poor drainage and the sand filling project taking place on the banks of Ilaje Bariga. “Sometimes even when it doesn’t rain, the area is flooded because of the surge of water from the ocean tide,” Agiri told Saturday Sun.

Looming danger

Recently the National Hydrological Services Agency warned that Lagos States and 34 other states in the federation would experience severe flooding as the rains get more intense. The agency attributed the imminent occurrence mainly to factors such as rise in water level, poor drainage pattern, desertification, carbon emissions, distortions of ecological systems and others.

Hence, residents living in flood prone areas were advised to relocate to avoid loss of lives and property, damage to crucial infrastructure, disruption of socio-economic activities and displacement of people.

In the same vein, the Lagos State Government, even prior to this warning, had on many occasions advised residents living in the flood plains to relocate, as the increased volume of rains had led to the rise in water level of the lagoons and rivers, causing a back-flow into adjoining low line areas.

Despite the stench and hazards they are exposed to, dwellers of these affected areas  are ignoring the series of official warnings, asking where government expected them to relocate. They accused government of being the major cause of the flooding in their areas due to unchecked environmental degradation activities in the mega city.

Specifically, they noted that the sand filling activities taking place along the various coasts of Lagos were the major cause of flooding , alleging that these were being done without the Environmental Impact Assessment (E.I.A) being conducted.

They also bewailed the poor state of drainage channels and poor monitoring of the various canals in the state.

An incensed Bariga resident querried: “Where do they want us to go to? The primary factor that is causing this flooding is the sand-filling taking place at the lagoons. Go there at Oworo and Ilaje axis of the Third Mainland Bridge and see things for yourself. The waters that have been pushed back, surge into various communities. The rainfall only makes it worse and that is why we have floods all over from Ikorodu to Ketu, Mile 12 and Bariga, anytime it rains.”

Herbert Onwukwe, a resident of swampy Mosafejo in Ojo Local government area criticised government agencies, even as he dismissed the issue with a fatalistic shrug. “We are faced with a serious threat, but what can we do, is to pray and hope that government would someday come to our aid. We cannot just move out of here, when there is no viable alternative for now.”

Also, a community leader in Itesiwaju CDA, Mr. Fabawunwo Agbola, told Saturday Sun that it was tatamount to self-deception asking residents to relocate when no alternative settlement had been  provided for them. “We mobilize people around the area to come out and clean their surroundings and clear their gutters to forestall outbreak of epidemic. We have also urged our people that live in houses very close to the canals to leave temporarily during the rainfall to avoid tragedies like drowning. But these are a far cry towards warding off the dangers we face. That is why we beg government to assist us in better channeling of our drainages. Because we would be deceiving ourselves if we expect people living in these flood- prone areas to relocate when there is no alternative place for them to go to,” he said.

But, Mr. Chuks Ezeh a resident of Ojuwoye in Mushin area, believed there was need to deploy officials of Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI), health inspectors and LAWMA to monitor the drainage channels so as to prevent them from being blocked with indiscriminate dumping of refuse by people. He said: “Many of the residents and also traders that hawk foodstuffs along the road don’t properly dispose their refuse, they rather drop their wastes into the gutters and wait for the rain water to wash them away.”