Flood hits Lagos after downpour

• Rainstorm damages Speaker’s, lawmakers’ offices in Kwara Statae

There was a heavy downpour in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, yesterday that left many roads across the state covered by flood. For more than two hours, movement both at the mainland and the island became hellish due to the flooded roads and traffic, forcing commuters to trek long distances while some vehicle owners parked to allow the flood to recede before continuing their journey.

However, as the 2017 rainy season gathers momentum, the Lagos State government has allayed the fears of residents over the torrential rainfall witnessed yesterday, saying that necessary steps had been taken to avert any incidence of flood disaster in the state.

The Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare, in a statement said government had in recent times carried out intensive tour of some flood-prone communities in the state to clear up blocked drainages and canals.

The commissioner wondered why any right thinking person would be dumping refuse on watercourses and drainages, created for free-flow of storm water, saying the numerous campaigns against such practice was for the interest of the residents.

“Canal is a storm water channel for the conveyance of storm runoffs, they are God’s natural protection for holding water during massive flood and it is not a place for anybody to build a house or dump refuse. Those in the habit of doing such must stop henceforth,” Adejare said.

Allaying fears of teeming Lagosians apprehensive of the rain, the commissioner said indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the gutters had caused a lot of environmental disasters, warning that the government would no longer tolerate the building of illegal structures along channel right of ways in the state.

To this end, he said the government had since begun demolishing illegal structures and shanties erected on the drains especially in flood-prone areas. Meanwhile, the offices of the Speaker and some members of the Kwara State House of Assembly were partially damaged by a downpour that happened late on Wednesday. The clerk of the house, Alhaji Mohammed Katsina, who announced this yesterday said the rainstorm also damaged the Assembly’s chambers.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that there was a downpour accompanied with storms, which lasted over three hours in Ilorin on Wednesday. Katsina described the incident as unfortunate. He said some sections of the Assembly’s main chamber were mostly affected by the rainstorm.