By Izunna Okafor, Awka
Lagos residents were hit with a double tragedy this week as flash flooding, triggered by heavy rainfall, submerged several neighbourhoods across the state, even as the state government also launched a massive demolition of what it termed “illegal structures”, displacing many families and disrupting livelihoods.
The floods, which ravaged communities such as Lekki, Victoria Island, Ajah, and VGC, left houses, vehicles, and properties under water, paralyzing both academic, church and business activities. The disaster also left many road users stranded for hours as major access routes were rendered impassable.
These we are corroborated by videos circulating on different social media platforms, showing the chaos and its impact on the residents. As shown in the videos, many streets were transformed into rivers, with residents wading waist-deep through waterlogged areas. Some motorists and commercial transporters also abandoned broken-down vehicles, while shop owners lamented losses as floodwater swept into their business premises. In many estates, residents remained indoors, cut off by the torrents, with daily movement completely restricted.
Reacting to the disaster, the Lagos State government, through the Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, admitted the scale of the problem and apologized to affected residents. He explained that Lagos’s low-lying coastal geography predisposes it to flooding, but insisted that human activities such as illegal construction, poor waste disposal practices, and blocked drainage channels had worsened the impact of the recent downpour. Wahab assured that measures were being put in place to forestall a recurrence.
While the city battled the havoc of flooding, another wave of hardship before the residents, as the Lagos State Government, on Thursday launched massive demolition on what it described as “illegal and unsafe structures” at the Trade Fair Complex in Ojo part of the State, in a bid to restore order and enforce physical planning laws.
According to Jubril Gawat, the Senior Special Assistant on New Media to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who confirmed the exercise in a post on X, the operation was targeted at “illegal developments, structures without statutory approvals, defective structures, and buildings erected on road setbacks and drainages.”
He said the government could no longer fold its arms while unapproved developments blocked critical infrastructure and endangered lives in the city.
It was gathered that the operation was jointly carried out by the Ministry of Physical Planning, Lagos State Building Control Agency, Lagos State Urban Renewal Agency, and the Lagos State Physical Planning Permit Authority; while the Office of Infrastructure, members of the Lagos State House of Assembly, and heavy presence of security agencies we are also captured in the videos from the scene during the exercise.
The videos also show bulldozers pulling down marked structures, while some traders and shop owners watch helplessly with concerns as their investments and businesses go down.
Watch the videos below:
