The Lagos State Government has apologised to residents and commuters over the floods that left millions stranded and many areas submerged, The Courage.
“I will start by saying to Lagosians, ‘We are sorry for the inconvenience caused due to nature’s cause yesterday morning’,” the Lagos State Commissioner of Environment and Water Resources Tokunbo Wahab.
Motorists were in gridlock and commuters stranded as the torrential rains which lasted for hours halted economic activities in Nigeria’s commercial capital.
Many had called out the government for its lack of plan to curtail the floods especially after similar ones have happened in past years.
But the commissioner said the floods were not due to the government’s lack of planning.
“It’s not for failure to plan that we had what happened yesterday,” Tokunbo said. “No, it was nature taking its full course. And we are sorry for those whose lives were disrupted: they could not go to work, they could not go to their marketplaces, they couldn’t go to school.”
According to him, the Lagos State Government had prepared for the situation and had early in the day deployed a team to manage the floods.
“Emergency teams were on the ground since around 4 a.m. I’ve been up since around 4 a.m. yesterday,” the commissioner said.
He noted that the impacts of the floods were managed a few hours after and insisted that, “Nature will take its course. What we have to do is to mitigate the impact of nature on the environment. And that was what we did yesterday.”
Wednesday’s rainfall began early even before residents of the state woke up for the day’s work.
Many who had defied the downpour had left their homes hoping to get to work. But most of them were stuck at bus stops while trying to move around the city.
The Iyana-Oworo-Olopomeji area heading to the Third Mainland Bridge was among the areas heavily flooded, causing a gridlock that extended to Alapere in the coastal city. In response, the Lagos State Government said it had deployed teams across the city to manage the floods and mitigate its impacts.
