The Lagos State Government on Monday has restated that the present administration would continue to ramp up its capacity by providing resilient infrastructure across the metropolis in order to proffer a lasting solution to flooding issues in the state.
The Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr. Tokunbo Wahab made this known when he featured on a popular TV interview recently, stating that in the last two years the Ministry had cleaned over fifty kilometers of secondary collectors and had dredged/maintained about Thirty - Eight primary channels across the state.
The Commissioner who alluded to the torrential rainfall that lasted over 14hours in Lagos recently especially as it affected some parts of Ikorodu, said remedial measures were immediately put in place.
"What happened in Ikorodu was that the contractor had been on site and dammed the downstream to allow the construction go on. He didn't know it was going to such a magnitude of heavy rains.When it started raining, the government appealed to him to free the downstream sector, so that the storm water will recede and people can have their normal lives back".
He explained that NIMEX gave a forecast as early as March and by April the Ministry commenced massive advocacy and also briefed Lagosians about five times in the past three months stressing that Lagosians were informed that they would experience more rains this year than they had last year based on the forecast.
He added that based on the rainfall predictions, residents living in lowlying areas such as Agboyi, Agiliti, Itowolo, Ajegunle communities were advised to move to the uplands pending when the flood water receeds.
He said the government had also ensured that the Emergency Flood Abatement Gang (EFAG) had cleaned about 666,000 of the drainage system/ manholes statewide across all LGAs / LCDAs all year round.
He said the narrative people tend to avoid is that climate change issues are real life issues saying in the past few weeks, countries that either don't experience this sort of flooding challenges are experiencing them.
He recalled that in 2024 contracts were awarded and contractors had moved to sites stressing that those construction projects usually take between 18 and 24 month before completion because
drainage construction are not like something you just pick, plug and play.
"The life span of the contract is usually between 18 to 24 months. These drainage constructions take a while to wrap up and complete. As such, the government can't short-circuit it. I will like to say again that various drainage contracts have been awarded while contractors been mobilized and they are on site. This is 2025. We've barely spent 12 months into it" he said.
"So drainage construction is ongoing in Ikorodu and various areas in the state. So what we cannot circumvent is to allow contractors to give us a substandard job. If the timeline for a contract according to the experts would take 24 months, we would let it run its full course but the government would continue to put temporary measures in place to mitigate flooding just like how pumping stations were installed across Lagos Island".
He added that the drainage construction is going on in System 44 in Lekki. System 44A, System 1 (Odo - Iyalaro) which are in three phases with the Iyalaro (the one from Ikeja, the one behind Sheraton, under the new bridge around Opebi and the confluence where it takes the water into the lagoon).
"So by and large, we expected the rains and as a government, resilient measures were in place. We have been doing massive advocacy and we keep doing the advocacy. I will like to reiterate that's the present administration have been ramping up the provision of drainage infrastructure statewide. And that's why we can say to anybody that, yes, we won't lie to residents. We are going to experience flash flooding".
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