Follow Us on Google
By Cosmas Omegoh and Olakunle Olafioye
The rainy season is here again. It’s the season many in Lagos love to dread.
The news that this year’s rains would likely be accompanied by storms might have sent some Lagos residents into panic mode. Because they know that in Lagos, sometimes it doesn’t just rain, it pours, with thick sheets of water pounding the city with unrestrained savagery.
Going by the comments of the Deputy General Manager, Training, Nigerian Metrological Agency (NiMET), Mr Olatunji Akinyemi, climate change might be at the centre of all of this, making a big difference in the climatic condition many used to know. This is the truth Lagos State government had long envisaged.
Not long ago, for instance, the state government and NiMET had met to review the 2021 Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP).
Special Adviser to the Governor on Drainage and Water Resources, Mr Joe Igbokwe, recalled through a representative that “SCP is an annual product of NiMet in which information on expected rainfall quarterly is released as Lagos is a low-lying state; we always monitor our SCP to better inform our people to be prepared to avoid flood-prone areas in order to protect their lives and property.
“We are doing this review of the data obtained to compare what happened in 2021, and measure its impact which is mostly felt at the communal level comprising already vulnerable and flood-insecure individuals, especially those living around the flood plain who have suffered floods due to intense and extreme rainfalls in recent times.”
The Director-General of NiMet, Prof Mansur Matazu, assured that NiMet would “continue to provide all stakeholders of the desired information and proper steps required for people to take adequate measures for their safety.”
In a recent chat with correspondent, Igbokwe promised Lagos residents that his agency was working hard to clear the drainage, to allow free flow of flood waters.
“We are working to ensure a flood-free city.
“We do this every year, but now, we feel there is no need to talk much about it anymore.
“When the rains come and Lagosians don’t see floods in some particular areas, then they will know that we are working.
“At the moment, we are evacuating refuse from the drainage system, because if they are full, there is nothing anyone can do.
“As for people living in lowland areas, there is nothing we can do,” he said.
But some residents of the city maintained that how things will turn out in the days ahead, will determine whether Igbokwe’s assurances will be relied upon or not.
“We have had these assurances over and over again in the past,” Olamilekan Davis, a Lagos resident, retorted.
He added: “We will only know that the right things have been down when we see that residents of Lekki who are always devastated by floods are no longer complaining.”
Speaking in like manner, Yemisi Olagoke, also a city resident, admitted that “one of the biggest challenges facing Lagos is flooding. It is a tough one for the state government to tackle.
“As we head into June and July, the vulnerable areas will be easily seen – flood waters taking over people’s homes, roads being rendered almost impassable. Only then will their work be seen.”
But at Mile 2, our correspondent observed officials of a construction company scoping putrid waste from the drainage system filled to the brim with loads of rubbish mindlessly dumped by the residents.
For a fact, almost every Lagosian throws their waste on the streets, a culture that has survived the ages, and having lasted for as long as many cannot remember. Over time, such waste finds its way into the drainage system, and obstructs flood flow.
Efforts by the state government to halt the unhealthy practice with advocacy seem not to have yielded enough dividends over the years.
Looking at the drainage channels spilling dark, smelly waters even on a rainless day, it was easy to decipher how long it had been full.
When it rained three days before, it was learnt, the Mile 2 end of the road was heavily flooded, despite being rehabilitated a few months ago. The heavy flood kept impeding the traffic, thereby contributing to the phenomenal gridlock the area is known for.
Investigations also revealed that a section of the Apapa-Oshodi expressway at Coker bus stop inward Oshodi, had remained massively flooded long days after the last rains fell, signaling that the road might be rendered impassable soon.
Going towards Orile, it was also noticed that the drainage channels along that axis were completely blocked.
Shortly before one connects the National Theatre, a portion of the road that remains perennially flooded was becoming worse.
Even with the city yet to hit the peak of the rainy season, some communities in Lagos are afraid of a repeat of the flooding in years past.
In highbrow Lekki Phase 1, some residents, for instance, were literally sacked from their homes by the floods. They are said to be reflecting on what awaits them.
In some other places – especially poor residential areas – some residents vacate their homes for as long as the floods reign. In parts of Surulere, for instance, flood waters, dirty as they are, stream into people’s homes leaving them helpless and homeless.
Water also springs from the ground and make the home hard to live in. In the days to come, scenes of home owners bailing out water from their apartments or trying to salvage their property from the floods after heavy rains might again be commonplace.
Already, the Lagos State government has issued advisories to residents living in low-lying areas to relocate. But where such residents will move to remains to be seen.
The government also often ask the people to desist from dumping refuse indiscriminately particularly in drainage to avoid flooding. But a call like this is often never unheeded to.
While heavy rains are being awaited, NiMET has admitted that storms will likely feature this season.
Giving an insight into what to expect, NIMET’s Deputy General Manager, Training, Mr Olatunji Akinyemi, recalled that at the beginning of rain activities, there is always rainstorms.
Storms, he stated, represent the processes that lead to the formation of the clouds, called thunderstorm cloud.
According to him, this gathers a lot of energy, which is known as updraft.
He said that when the cloud is growing, it draws in high amount of energy, leaving the cloud building up, to become very tall in the atmosphere.
“It is at the point of this generation of that cloud – when it begins to die off – that it releases all that it has accumulated over the period it was growing. All those things that are released are what we experience as storms. You will discover that once you have the wind, the rain will come thereafter in most cases.”
While assuring that “the public should not be so afraid,” he expressed the hope that “we are almost getting to the peak of the rainy season now when the storm will not be so intense.
“This is always the case at the beginning of rainy season. If one has not monitored it before now, one might think it is very unusual. But if you have observed it for some time, and you feel this year’s own is a bit different, then we can begin to attribute this to climate change.
“Weather activities will also change, and we will be tending towards extreme events because of global warming. There has been a shift from what it used to be, and that is making the system to be more powerful than they were before. So, we are having more wind, more rain in some places and more dryness in some other places.
“So the effect that the climate is producing depends on where we are. That is likely to be what we are experiencing in terms of the rainstorms.”
Indeed, severe rainstorms have swept through the city lately. Lagos residents can remember how they threatened building, trees and even power cables.
For instance, Mrs Ngozi Anyanwu who lives in Isheri-Osun, a Lagos suburb, said that one of such terrifying rainstorms destroyed facilities in the community before the rains fell in mid May.
“I observed how a misty storm swept down, rattling buildings, including ours, forcing everyone to run for safety; it was powerful.
“After the rains, we were not surprised to notice how the storm tore through our church auditorium’s roof, pulling off several roofing sheets.”
She also stated that as it is customary of the power distribution company in charge of her area, it swiftly cut electricity supply the moment the storms began to rage – just to prevent the cables overhead from being pulled off, and passersby electrocuted.
Our correspondent learnt that with the rains well on their way, chances are that the residents might have to relive the ordeal of flooded homes and highways in the city with the attendant, pain and anguish. But that indeed, is the pain no one wants to go through.
