Residents of Gold Crescent-Bungalow Scheme, in the Oke Afa area of Ejigbo Local Council Development Area, have cried out over an uncompleted drainage project that has blocked and split the only link road in the area into two.
The estate has been battling with flooding over the years whenever it rains with a series of havoc recorded including loss of lives.
Last year, one person was killed in the estate after a downpour rocked the area, with the residents blaming poor drainage for the havoc.
Following a TheNigerian Metro report in September 2023, the state government drafted contractors to the area last December to work on the drainage.
However, according to the residents who spoke with our correspondent during a visit to the estate on Saturday, the contractors had since left the area around March this year, abandoning the drainage work halfway allegedly for about eight months and counting.
Our correspondent saw a mixing machine left around the drainage channel, a significant sign that work was expected to continue in the area.
It was also observed that the drainage work had completely disrupted navigation for pedestrians and motorists within the estate as cars were parked along the road with the owners trekking the dangerous drainage path to their houses.
Our correspondent observed that House 151 B, like a couple of other houses on the street, has its entrance blocked with no easy access to the building.
“We had to use a ladder to bring them out when there was a heavy rain and their apartment was flooded,” the chairman of the estate association, Emmanuel Ezeugwu, told our correspondent.
Flanked by other executives, and residents, the chairman, who spoke on behalf of the estate, said, “We have a peculiar problem and it is that in the whole of this locality, all the way from Ejigbo Police Station, the NNPC depot, all the waters that gather there from Gate, First Bank, and Catholic Church, they all end up here in our estate, through the street.
“The result of that, as you can see how the street is, is massive flooding, road degradation. Now, this problem has led to instances where all the homes on the Crescent are flooded. A life was lost, one woman who lived on Grace Street here, was carried away by this flood in 2018.”
According to him, after the estate complained to the state government, the drainage contract was awarded “but we don’t know if the contract has brought us succour, or has brought us more problems.”
“We must appreciate the Lagos State Government. At least, when we cried out, they responded. But there is also a need to pay attention to the people who are doing this job so that they can do the job for which they have been engaged to do,” he added.
He said after the contractor did some work in the area, “we ended up having a situation where the street was broken into two because he (the contractor) now erected a wall, more like a road across the road, and half of the street cannot drive down anymore. The other lower part of the street is completely eroded. People cannot move out anymore, we can’t bring in our cars. If we have to bring in our cars for any reason, we have to go through the next streets, and they are different streets with different security networks.”
The chairman further lamented, “So, if there’s an emergency in the night, you can also imagine what’s going to happen. So, this is our problem. We don’t know the scope of the work, or whether they have to provide driveways, we don’t know. We don’t know what they are doing. They should come around, take a look at what they have done, whether the design is effective, whether it’s going to solve the problem.
“We are asking that the ministry concerned should send experts or professionals to look at what they are doing, assess what they are doing, and ensure that it’s an efficient system they are doing, whether it will serve the purpose for which the contract was awarded.
“We have retirees, minors, and elderly persons in this neighbourhood. When this place was built, we had walkways, now they have converted all the walkways on both sides to an open drainage.
“We have a record, we have the history, that this flood has killed two persons; two souls that have been lost to this drainage. One was last year, one was in 2018. So, we don’t want more losses.”
Our correspondent assisted a 70-year-old to cross the open gutter, with the woman, who asked not to be named, describing the menace as her daily experience within the estate.
“An elderly person fell into the gutter around here before he eventually died recently,” she said.
A security man who also preferred to remain anonymous said the estate had “always been experiencing horrific times because of the flooding.”
The chairman of the estate suggested that the Lagos State Government should also take a holistic look at the area and find a way of redistributing the water volume that comes to this area.
“If it’s spread to other areas within the locality, perhaps it will address this problem,” he added.
On Sunday, pictures sent to TheNigerian Metro showed a worsening flood situation in the drainage area and the entire estate following some minutes of downpour that happened in the afternoon.
When contacted, the spokesperson for the Lagos State Ministry of Environment, Kunle Adeshina, faulted the claim of the residents on the length of the period the contractor had left the site.
According to him, the contractor only left the site around June and it was due to his request for more funds to continue the work.
In a telephone interview on Sunday, Adeshina said, “It is not true that the contractor left the site for eight months. I called the director in charge. The contractor left the site around June or late July. He was concerned that the initial budget could not complete the project and a reviewed budget has been taken to the governor. From what the director said, the governor has just okayed the new bill. So very soon, (work will resume).
“The man asked for an upward review and it’s a long process – before the procurement agency attends to it – but very soon, the contractor will return to the site.
“We appeal to them to be patient. It’s about paucity of funds and allocation of resources.”
The estate was built years ago by the Lagos State Development and Property Corporation, but an official in the corporation noted that it had been taken over by the Lagos State Building Investment Company.
However, some of the residents disagreed, insisting that the LSDPC had only “abandoned us” despite being aware of their plights.
TheNigerian Metro contacted the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the LSDPC, Ayo Joseph, who noted he was aware there had been complaints about the situation of the estate.
“I think at a time, some people came to complain about what was happening there but I can’t remember the whole story,” he said in a telephone conversation on Saturday.
He asked to be given time to find out details about the estate and get back to our correspondent on Monday “during office hours so that I can be properly guided.”
Efforts to reach the LBIC were abortive as a phone number available on its website was unreachable.
