MEMORIES of the floods that ravaged parts of Lagos last weekend will linger in the minds of many residents of highbrow Ajah, Lekki and Victoria Island. It was a day that nature called to question the pride and excitement associated with living in the prestigious areas, with a number of the residents expressing the wish that they were resident on Lagos mainland.
The visits our correspondents made to different parts of Lagos Island after the heavy floods showed that the fear of rain has become the beginning of wisdom among the residents. Some of them who spoke with our correspondents said that borrowing from the biblical story of Noah and the ark, they actually feared that the world was coming to an end when floods took over their homes.
A resident of Jakande Estate, along Ajah area of the state, who identified himself simply as Adeoye, said: “When my house was completely flooded, I looked outside to see if I could get a neighbour to help me. But looking outside, I saw that everywhere had been taken over by flood. Everybody was screaming and there was nobody to help anybody. At this point, the biblical story of how God destroyed the world using rain came to my mind. I quickly knelt down on my bed, which was already soaked by flood, and started asking God for forgiveness so that if the end were to come in that manner, my soul would not perish.”
Virtually all the houses on the estate were still flooded when our correspondents visited on Tuesday. The situation, it was gathered, had forced many residents to vacate their houses while more people were planning to leave. Our reporters, who had to wade through murky waters, report that the flood was still above knee level at the time of the visit.
A resident who gave her name as Mrs. Irene Eze was overtly ruffled when she spoke with The Nation. “I had never experienced anything like that,” she said. “The one that is close to it occurred about five years ago, but it cannot be compared with this. The flood spoilt everything in my house. We cannot stay in the house let alone sleep there.
“When the water started coming, we thought it was a play. At that point, we could wear rain boots and stay in the house. But before we knew what was happening, the water level started rising until it covered the bed and turned the refrigerator upside down. Everything inside the house started flying in different directions. If you tried to hold one thing, you would see several others being carried away by the flood. After some time, the water inside the house rose to the waist level and we had to run for our dear lives.
“Many people in the neighbourhood have fled because their houses are no longer accessible. We are also moving out because there is no place for us to lay our heads.”
Hoodlums take advantage
Eze lamented that besides the frustration caused by the flood, hoodlums were exploiting the situation to compound their woes. “The worst is that thieves have been compounding our woes. They have been raiding our houses and making away with the valuables we were able to recover from the flood,” she said.
Her claim was buttressed by another resident who identified himself simply as Anthony. According to him, “the hoodlums have been unleashing terror on the embattled residents. When they stormed one of the buildings, the man quickly locked the door, but they forced their way into the house and brutalised him. It is unimaginable that people could be so mean as to be attacking distressed people like us.
“We had a vigilante group watching over the area, but the present state of the estate has made it impossible for them to work. We are as good as not having any security in the neighbourhood. This is what the hoodlums have seen and are exploiting.”
Asked if he too would be leaving the area, Anthony said: “I am moving my family out because the environment is not healthy anymore. It is highly prone to epidemics. You have to wade through dirty water to enter your house. And when you enter, you see frogs and toads jumping around and singing unpleasantly to your ears. If you see my children’s legs, you will not advise me to stay a minute longer.”
Commercial activities were also paralysed in the estate as most of the shops were shut because of flood. Only a few traders defied the flood to open their shops. One of them, who gave his name as Alhaji Usman, said he only opened his shop to fulfill all righteousness.
He said: “I am not selling, because nobody takes the risk of wading through this dirty water just to come and buy something. I cannot switch on my fridge because the flood entered everywhere. I have thrown some of my goods away because the flood soaked them and made them unfit for human consumption.
“I cannot ascertain the degree of my losses until the dust has finally settled. But what I know is that many traders will almost be starting afresh because of the havoc wreaked by the flood.”
Residents and traders at Ikate, another community on the Lekki\Ajah Expressway, were also ruing the losses inflicted on them by the flood. Some of the aggrieved traders vented their anger on our correspondents who approached them for comment.
“What is the benefit of the questions you are asking us?” one of them queried. “Are you going to pay us for the losses we suffered or you want to use our problem to sell your paper? There is nothing we would say that would reverse the loss we have suffered. We have accepted our fate and would not compound our emotional trauma by believing that the government would compensate us.”
A cement seller who gave his name simply as Ganiyu said: “The flood has caused untold setback for many of us. The flood soaked several bags of cement in my shop, and you know what that means. The same thing happened to many traders in the area. We hope that the government would put necessary measures in place to avert reoccurrence in the future.”
Residents smart from tragedy
It was also a tale of woes from residents who were still drying their mattresses and clothes when The Nation visited.
One of the residents, Najite, said: “I have developed phobia for rain because of the nasty experience of last week. The same thing applies to many other residents. We are close to praying that it should not rain again. Imagine if the rain had continued till today, would dead bodies not liter the whole place?
“The havoc the flood wreaked is too grave to be described with words. As you can see, we are still drying up our mattresses and clothes messed up by the flood. It was a hell trying to rescue the children and at the same time trying to save some of the valuables in the house.
“When the flood became too much, I prepared my mind for the worst, because I didn’t know what to do anymore as it was not safe to go outside or stay inside. It was God’s grace that saw us through that weekend.”
Days after the flood had dried up, Emma Abimbola Street and adjoining areas in Lekki were still flooded. A resident who spoke with our correspondent decried the development, saying that it has caused severe psychological trauma for the people, especially the aged ones.
“The incident of last weekend was traumatic,” said the resident. “It took many people to the land of the dead but fortunately brought them back. There are many people who have not overcome the shock as we speak. Some people lost vital documents and valuables to the flood. If God were not merciful enough to cause the rain to stop, the casualty figure would have been terrible.
“Look at our road and see the volume of water three days after the incident. This also precludes the fact that sun has been shinning since. Our vehicles are constantly damaged and it is eating deep into our pocket. It is imperative for the government to do something about this to forestall future reoccurrence.”
A commercial motorcycle operator in Lekki, who identified himself as Sanni Adamu, also shared his funny experience thus: “I had never lifted my wife since I married her because she is very fat. But on that day, I had to do so because she was sick and couldn’t walk. When the flood rose above my knee level, I quickly took my children to a safe place and later returned to take my wife.
“Because she couldn’t walk, I attempted to carry her but we both fell inside the flood. Fear gripped me at that point because the water level was rising and I feared that it could sweep us away. But as God would have it, energy just came from nowhere and I managed to carry her. Wallahi, I didn’t know how it happened. It was God who saved us from calamity.”
Precious Okorocha, a resident of Lekki Gardens, said the aftermath of the flood was what got to her the most.
She said: “It was so serious that three days later when I bought fuel into my car at a filling station close to Lekki Gardens, I found a residue of water in the fuel. A friend of mine could not even go to work after the rain had stopped because the roads were still flooded. Even when we buy fuel in jerry cans to power our generator, it is the same sad story of fuel mixing with water.”
Okorocha added that those who stay on elevated floors where water could not penetrate their homes were under house arrest as they could not go out of their houses into the streets. It was a pathetic period for people who had no food at home.
She said: “That weekend, people could not go to church. People who had no foodstuff at home were in a mess. Nobody could go out to buy anything. My house assistant was drenched to chest level. He is still battling with cold. There was power outage and we couldn’t even use our generators. It was like we were living in bondage.”
For Femi Ogunjobi, a resident of Oniru Private Estate, it was a dramatic turn of event when he noticed the rising tide of the flood.
He captured his plight thus: “On a weekend that could have been for an outing, a bang on my door woke me up: ‘Femi, come out o, the estate has been flooded!’ With unclear sight, I swaggered to my apartment’s main gate. Behold, it was something else. There was water everywhere. The whole place had been submerged. Trash cans and vehicles were floating. Neigbours were walking on water and parking out streams of water from their houses.
“It was a pitiful sight. Flood blocked the walkways. I assisted a neighbour in ‘scooping out’ water from her room. While the rain lasted, I slept with the fear that I could end up a victim while trying to swim the next day. I had no canoe to paddle and I had no skills in swimming.”
Residents lost more than N100m worth of property —VIISET
Apart from individual residents, the flood incident has also attracted the concerns of the Victoria Island and Ikoyi Security and Environment Trust (VIISET), the operating arm of Victoria Island and Ikoyi Residents Association.
Bemoaning the development, the Executive Secretary of the association, Alhaji Muse Abdulateef, said: “The association is very disturbed, and we have alerted the state government. As the development was taking place on Saturday, we were communicating with the Commissioner for Environment and a couple of people.
“We are very disturbed because it seems the state needs to be more responsive to the yawnings of the people. Very early in May this year, we had a meeting with the commissioner and the Secretary to the Government, and we told them the potential problems that would cause flooding. They said they were going to do something about it and that they had engaged contractors that would not only take care of the solid wastes but also take care of the drainage system.
“We have made the state government to understand that this area is technically below sea level. The state should not take it as one of the areas it should take care of. We must of necessity work on this area routinely. On Saturday, quite a number of houses were flooded. Furniture, carpets, books, documents were destroyed.
“A few people moved out of the island. Some people moved to Ikoyi, which is better. Our view is that the state needs to work on the drainage system.”
The association also believes that the reclamation work going on in the area was being done without carrying out an environmental impact assessment.
“The association is very worried and very concerned. Prevention is better than cure. Look at the anxiety that will come upon the people when there are signs that it would rain. We had over 80- year-old people whose sitting rooms were filled with water and they had to climb somewhere from where they were asking if the water had gone. It is not funny.
“Even the Federal Ministry of Environment appears to be looking the other way.
“Some of our members whose houses were affected had just acquired new furniture. They all got spoilt. Our members lost nothing less N100 million to the incident. That is just the back-of-the-envelope calculation. Some of them are smart as they always pack their furniture immediately they see signs of heavy rains. But some of them were caught unawares by the last flood incident.
“And you can’t quantify the damage in monetary terms alone. Look at the anxiety. People are going to the hospital to check their blood pressure after the incident. They saw danger and their blood pressure went up.”
People must stop indiscriminate dumping of waste —Commissioner
The Director, Public Affairs Unit of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority, Mr Lanre Bajulaite, in an interview with The Nation, blamed the flood on people’s attitude to waste management, saying that people in highbrow areas in Lagos are not exempted from the habit of indiscriminate dumping of waste.
Bajulaite said: “You can’t heap the blame of the flood on LAWMA, because we are doing our best. If LAWMA should stop work for one day, nobody will be able to live in Lagos. We generate 14, 000 metric tons of waste per day.
“On a daily basis, the population of Lagos increases. You have no fewer than 80 people coming into Lagos every day to live. Our people should do what is right by not dumping refuge in the drainages. If drainages are blocked, definitely there will be flooding.”
Bemoaning Nigerians’ attitude to waste management in the country, he accused “the so called educated elites who also keep trash in the booths of their cars, dumping it on major junctions on the high way.
“These waste dumped on major highways block the little holes that are created to take rain water into the major drainage. That is why you have flooding on the highways.
“Also, most of the houses do not have permit to build. They build below the water level, so once the roads are flooded, the water spills over into the compound, and from the compound to the parlour.”
