Lekki floods: Agony of the rich

Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, Lagos, has been experiencing floods, which continue to ground economic activities and submerge low-lying and highbrow areas.  And as usual, Lekki, one of the areas highly prone to flooding, is not spared. Weekend Trust captures the agony of the rich in the expensive neighbourhoods.   The rich also cry. This age-long maxim […]

Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, Lagos, has been experiencing floods, which continue to ground economic activities and submerge low-lying and highbrow areas.

 And as usual, Lekki, one of the areas highly prone to flooding, is not spared. Weekend Trust captures the agony of the rich in the expensive neighbourhoods.  

The rich also cry. This age-long maxim perhaps summarises the never-ending flood disasters that have become a yearly routine for the residents and property owners in Lekki, one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in Lagos State, and Nigeria as a whole.

Apart from being home to the affluent and large number of industries, Lekki in Eti-Osa Local Government Area of the state, has grown to become one of the most sought-after locations in Lagos and a major attraction for leisure and recreation. Its accessibility to other commercial centres – such as Victoria Island and Ikoyi – also makes it an area that attracts high-income earners and investors.

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But any time it rains for more than five hours, Lekki will have its share of flooding and the natural occurrence has endured for a long time. Places usually affected by the flooding are: Lekki Phase I, all the way down to Lekki Free Trade Zone and Ajah. Other areas affected are: Lekki Phase II, Osapa London, Victoria Garden City, Ikoyi, Banana Island, Badore, Bogije, Igbo Efon and Awoyaya.

Findings by Weekend Trust showed that despite the yearly flooding and destruction of property in Lekki and other highbrow locations, the value of properties in these areas has never gone down.

According to residents and real estate experts, the value of property in the locations will not go down in the foreseeable future.

They said properties in the locations are in high demand and people who live there are not likely to relocate as a result of the incidents of flooding, which they believe will not last forever.

For instance in January 2022, analyses on average land prices in key nodes of Lagos State indicated that there was an increase of between 22 per cent and 63 per cent in the last two years.

Lekki Phase 1 recorded the highest increase of 63 per cent in land prices between 2019 and 2021 followed by Agungi, also along the Lekki-Epe expressway; while Sangotedo had over 51 per cent increment within the period under review. This was part of the analysis of the 2022 Nigeria Real Estate Market Outlook released by the foremost real estate investment firm, Northcourt.

  

Tales of woe  

Our correspondent, who visited the axis, including Ologolo, Kayode and adjoining streets in Agungi bus stop, and Lekki-Epe Expressway, observed that many of the residents were lamenting their woes over the flooding.

The Lekki residents expressed their concerns over the torrential rainfall, saying that it has opened them to perennial flooding, which takes over major inner streets, impeding free human and vehicular movements. 

In separate interviews, the residents voiced their plights, blaming both the community leaders for being “comfortable with the communities being submerged yearly” by flood and what they called the state government’s slow intervention to end their plights.

The Ustaz at Ologolo Central Mosque, Raji Kamarudeen, who has lived in the community for three decades, attributed the flood to lack of physical planning for the construction of houses, saying the community became victims of the flood when new dwellers began to build houses without any plan for drainage, leaving the residents exposed to the deluge nightmare. 

 “This flood is a result of the nature of development in the area. When people started building houses without drainage and with the absence of drainage, there won’t be a channel for water to flow, therefore it causes floods.

“It affects those of us who have been here for a long time, apart from a few people who are rebuilding or developing their buildings. But those of us who have been here for long, the flood is our problem,” he said.

He added that lack of cooperation among the residents has left the streets to become a harbour for flood water to lodge for long, and called on the state government to come to their rescue.

“What we think the government can do is to provide drainage. When there is provision of drainage and refilling of roads, I think that will help to resolve the issues. The developers of the houses made attempts to put drainage in place, but not everyone cooperated; if there is cooperation, a lot can be achieved,” he said.

Another resident, simply identified as Patrick, acknowledged that the community is susceptible to flooding, stressing that most of the lands on the Islands were sand-filled, posing a threat to the condition of the environment provided so long as it lacks proper drainage channels.

 “When it rains, it is just like the cases in most of the Islands here. Most of the areas on the Island are sand-filled. I am not sure when development was coming to this area, the government did anything to combat flood, because if it was planned and prepared for, I am not sure we would have these kinds of challenges,” he said.

Patrick added, “In these areas, there are no drainage systems and there was a time so many developers came in here and they were doing the drainage, but they were forced to stop due to the demand for money from them. They stopped, yet what they had already done is the reason we can still pass through some parts, otherwise it could have been worse. 

 

Foundational defect blamed for Lekki flood 

A foremost Nigerian environmentalist, Desmond Majekodunmi, has traced the perennial flooding around Lekki Peninsula, to the expansion and development in Lagos, which he said was done in disharmony with nature.

According to him, when Lagos needed to expand and went to the Lekki area, a lot of the expansion that was done there relied on draining and sand-filling those areas due to their mangrove nature.

“It’s mainly a mangrove area; mangrove ecosystem which means that it is a very low line, sometimes the same level as the water and it has a lot of water in it.

“It’s not a lake body but it is similar to a lake body, it carries vegetation and it is not so deep. So, the Lekki area is a mangrove area,” Majekodunmi told Weekend Trust.

He explained that there are some places in Lekki, that are dryland areas, like Ajah, Abijo, Lafiagi and several others.

“But instead of focusing on developing more around those areas and preserving the wetland, preserving the mangrove, the push was just to maximise the space for development and there was so much sand filling,” the author, singer and script-writer, said.

He maintained that, “sand filling itself does not necessarily have to be too disruptive to the ecosystem.”

He said in the process of the development, a “sufficient and adequate drainage systems” ought to be in place “at least to replicate the natural drainage that the mangrove has been doing centuries upon centuries.

“If you don’t do this then, you are opening yourself to flooding, which is what is happening.

“This was not done adequately enough, but to make it even worse, the drains that were developed are some of the natural streams because they took that into consideration in those days when they started the development.”

He said even though they did allow a few natural streams to remain, many of them were developed over again, “making the situation far worse.”

“Even the drains were not adequate in those days, let alone now when we are having far heavier rains because of climate change, global warming,” he said.     

 

‘Unbridled desire for profits’ 

Majekodunmi, who is the Chairman of Lekki State Urban Forest and Animal Shelter Initiative (LUFASI), also blamed the crisis on what he called unbridled desire for maximising profits and ignoring the consequences.

 “This is really the crux of the matter. The foundation of Lekki development was not what it should have been. We did not do the development in harmony with nature and there is one thing about nature: whatever you give nature, nature will give you back. What you sow into nature, comes back. That’s our structure,” he said.      

The expert also said, “We are the ones who allowed this to happen. We got a little bit too selfish, greedy, and it is not just in Lagos, not just in Nigeria, it is an African issue, and it is reflected all over the world. Our unbridled desire for maximising profits and ignoring the consequences has now turned nature against humanity in a very big way.”

 Asked why government allowed the disruption to happen, he said; “Well, government is us, of the people, for the people, by the people. We allowed it to happen. We are a democratic country. We had democratic government. The people allowed it to happen. The tendency is to put more blame on the leaders, but then why did the people allow the leaders to do what they did?”

 

Refuse dump, building on waterways  

The perennial flooding, which has led to the loss of valuables worth millions of naira year in year out, has also been traced to the poor drainage facilities in the community.

The Lagos State government equally blamed the flood situation on the dumping of refuse into water channels by the residents.

Last year, the government embarked on demolition and removal of structures on the drainage channels in some areas including Gedegede – Mobil road – Ikota drainage channel at Lekki Phase II. 

The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahaba, said the exercise was meant to restore the original plan of the Lagos State drainage channel along the axis so as to ensure the free flow of water, thereby reducing flooding.

In June when the commissioner led a tour to Freedom Park Road / Kusenla Junction, Alpha Beach Road to assess the situation, he said a minor encroachment was observed along Alfa Beach behind the James Hope University where a blockage was discovered.

He said he ordered an immediate excavation from Alpha Beach to Conservation Road and the removal of all obstructing structures.

“People were discovered to have built structures to block System 156. The state will not fold its hands and allow some people, for profit-making, to destroy infrastructure provided by individuals and the government.

“The state government will continue to ramp up enforcement operations across the state to reclaim setbacks and drainage alignments towards preventing flooding.

“People are used to having bad behavioural patterns. Things cannot stop overnight and the government agencies and ministries will join forces to put a stop to these actions by enforcing our laws,” he said.

He appealed to residents to be whistle-blowers for the government.

 “The government cannot be everywhere,” he maintained. 

 

Residents too must act 

To address the challenges, Majekodunmi said it requires a “massive and huge task” on the part of the government, and also asked the residents to leave up to the scriptural injunctions which require them to love their neighbours by desisting from dumping refuse into the drainage channels.

“Then, a lot of hard work; and then the individuals should really, really desist from throwing rubbish into the drains. It’s totally unacceptable.

 “It is totally against injunctions, which are common in major scriptures of our country and that is to love your neighbour. Blocking a gutter with rubbish can cause flood and that flood can destroy livelihoods. Where is the connection between peace and love, and causing chaos in your neighbours’ lives because you are so lazy that you have to throw your rubbish into the drains?

“This is also a wake-up call to all of us if we truly believe in the scripture that we follow, which also tells us clearly that ‘what you sow is what you reap,’ Majekodunmi stated.

Also speaking with our correspondent, Mrs Mercy Edukugho-Aminah, an expert in estate planning and founder of Fiduciary Services Limited, called for discipline and respect of the law by  both the citizens and the government officials.

She said both the government and individuals are complicit in the crisis.

“Our being disciplined as a people, the government not being complicit with the private citizens in sabotaging the entire system because when it happens, it may be one or two people that built on waterways, but you have hundreds and millions of other people that suffer from it.

“So, they should be thinking about the bigger picture. And what is the bigger picture? Is it that one person benefits and hundreds suffer or is it that one person suffers and hundreds benefit? It’s for the people and the majority of the people,” she told Weekend Trust.

 

Lagos plans bigger collector along Agungi road 

In a bid to find a permanent solution to flood in Lekki, Ajah and environs, Wahab hinted in a post on his X that the ministry has decided to construct a bigger collector along Agungi road, expected to bring relief to residents in that axis.

He said after the construction of a new collector, the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure will also be invited to raise the level of roads.

“The construction of a bigger collector became necessary along Agungi road to prevent flooding in the area, following the incidents experienced as a result of the continuous rainfall in the state in the past few days.

“The Emergency Flood Abatement Gang was deployed while the rain was ongoing to clear the debris in the collector at the aforementioned areas to allow free flow of storm water,” he said.

Wahab, while addressing the specific challenges in areas like Osapa London and Agungi, detailed the existing drainage systems and the need for additional infrastructure.

He said: “There are two collectors serving these areas. A primary channel discharges through Chevron Road to the lagoon, and a secondary collector is also in place.

However, recent developments have outstripped these systems. We need to put in a secondary collector to help manage the drainage effectively.”

In response to a tweet accusing the government of targeting structures belonging to a particular ethnic group,  Wahab stated that the demolition efforts were strictly aimed at removing illegal structures obstructing drainage paths.