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Shifts Blame on Residents
- Safiu Kehinde
The Minister of Works, Sen. Dave Umahi, has debunked claims attributing the recent flood incidents in Lagos to the construction of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
Umahi shifted the blame on human activities by residents who he accused of blocking the drainage and waterways with refuse.
The minister stated this while speaking during an exclusive interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday.
Umahi attributed persistent flooding in Lagos to alleged blockage of culverts, clogged manholes, indiscriminate waste disposal and construction on natural water channels.
These, according to him, were compromising the effectiveness of the drainage infrastructure.
Umahi held that the coastal highway was designed to mitigate flooding, not cause it.
“But what is actually happening is that there is a very high level of unpatriotic tendencies among the residents. There is so much sabotage.
“People are blocking the manholes. People are blocking the culverts. People are dumping refuse.
“You cannot eat your cake and have it back. It is up to the residents to understand that you are building on water channels, you are blocking the manholes, you are dumping refuse inside them, and you are blocking the culverts we built.
“The coastal highway is actually addressing flooding within this corridor, not causing it,” he emphasised.
Umahi further explained that the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway incorporates extensive drainage infrastructure, including multiple culverts and evacuation channels, to protect surrounding communities from ocean surges and improve flood management along the coastal corridor.
“One thing is very certain: if you look at the corridor before the construction, you will see flooding. You see flooding!
“What is happening with the coastal highway is that before it was built, the ocean would surge and throw water directly into the residences, especially in the northern part of the highway corridor.
“But with the level of the coastal highway, through the EIA and very intelligent design, we’ve been able to raise the road to a mitigated level.
“But what has the coastal highway done to address that? On the coastal highway, you see multiple culverts. When you come within this corridor, you see about 10 different evacuation channels.
“So, what the coastal highway has done is two things. One, it has prevented the water from the ocean surge from moving from the southern part of the highway over to the residential areas on the northern side.
“Two, to address the low-lying land within the southern part of it, we have introduced multiple culverts.
“In fact, you have culverts at about every 50 meters going through from the southern part to the northern side, where you have a number of evacuation corridors. So it is fixing the flood issue,” he explained.
Citing historical flooding in Victoria Island, he argued that the area had experienced severe inundation years before the project was conceived.
“It is in this country that in the name of being a ‘content creator,’ everybody becomes an engineer and a financial expert.
“Our Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) should be in the possession of everyone as far as the EIA is concerned.
“Let’s take the history of flooding in VI far back when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was governor.
“You will find out that in VI, during the peak of the rains, nobody could go to work. VI was almost submerged. It took the audacity of one man, President Tinubu, working with Hi-Tech, to arrest that situation. Was there a coastal highway at that time? Flooding almost took VI.
“Within the next 30 years, no matter the level of climate change, the ocean will not come to the level of the road.
“So, it has nothing to do with that. There are a lot of factors concerning flooding in Lagos and within this corridor,” he argued.