The Floods Will Not Stop Until We Demolish What We Should Never Have Built, By Akinropo Akinola

Let’s be honest with ourselves. Every year, the rains come, and every year, Lagos drowns.

Not because God is angry.
Not because climate change is too big for us to handle.

Not because we don’t have enough money.

But what I have noticed across the state is that we have built houses where rivers used to flow. We have blocked drainage channels with concrete and called it development. And then we look up at the sky and ask, “Why is this happening to us?”

Drive through Ogba, Oba Akran, Agege, Ikorodu, Surulere, Lekki/Ajah axis during a downpour and you will see mansions sitting in water up to their gates.

My hood in Ogba has never been this worse

Walk through other flood prone areas in the state and watch commuters wade through the flood to and fro work ditto traders struggling to save their goods from rising water.

Watching all this make me wonder why the water not go to the lagoon or at best flow into the canal?

This is so because there is no canal anymore. Someone built a duplex or shopping mall on it. Someone paved over the drainage alignment. Someone sold that land, someone bought it, and someone approved it, even though the master plan clearly said “Do not build here.”

We can’t always blame nature for this perennial flood we are purely victims of our own greed and oftentimes filth.

Passage of water and its channels in Lekki/Ikota/Ajah, have been blocked by estates that should never have been approved.

In Surulere, Oshodi, Mushin, gutters are filled with rubbish by undsciplined citizens and drains are so choked that a 30-minute rain turns roads into rivers.

Agege and Alimosho suffer hugely when flash floods come without warning and leave families counting losses. My friends in Ikorodu and Epe residents have accepted flooding as a way of life, as if they have no choice

Victoria Island and Ikoyi not left out where the rich also cry, because when the tide is high and the rain is heavy, even million-naira properties cannot escape the water.

These are not new problems. We have known about them for decades. And yet, we keep building. We keep approving. We keep hoping the flood will skip us this year.

The inconvenient truth is that some houses and structures must go. This is the part nobody wants to say out loud: If we truly want to stop the flooding, many of the buildings standing today will have to come down.

Not because we hate the owners. Not because we want to punish anyone. But because the water needs room to breathe. “ona kii di mo omi” water will always find its way

A drainage channel cannot do its job when a wall is sitting on it. A river cannot carry water away when a fence is blocking its path. A wetland cannot absorb floodwater when it has been turned into a housing estate.

We cannot have it both ways. We cannot build on water channels and then complain that our streets are flooded.

The Lagos State Government has demolished some structures already. They have cleared some drains. They have ordered people to move. But it is not enough and everyone knows it.

There are still hundreds of buildings sitting on drainage alignments. There are still powerful developers who get away with blocking waterways. There are still residents who refuse to stop dumping refuse into the gutters.

Until we are willing to remove what should never have been built, we will keep flooding. No amount of dredging, no number of new drains, no billion-naira budget will save us if we do not first clear the path for the water.

This is not rocket science. This is common sense.

For the government:

Stop approving buildings on wetlands, floodplains, and drainage channels. If it is not in the master plan, do not sign it.

Demolish every structure; no matter who owns it that blocks a primary drainage channel. Yes, even in Lekki. Yes, even if the owner is connected.

Enforce the law equally. The poor man in Ajegunle should not be the only one whose shack is removed while the rich man’s duplex in Ikota stays standing.

Publish the drainage master plan so everyone can see where building is forbidden. No more secrets. No more backroom approvals.

For developers and landowners:

Stop cutting corners. If the land is not suitable for building, do not build on it. You are not just risking your own property; you are flooding your neighbors too.

Restore natural waterways on your properties. Leave room for the water. It is not weakness; it is wisdom.

For all of us – Lagosians:

Stop throwing refuse into the drains. It is not the government’s job to clean up after you. The gutter is for water, not for plastic bags and bottles.

Speak up when you see illegal construction. Report it. Shame it. Because that one building might be the reason your street floods next week.

Until Then, We Are Cruising — Straight into Disaster

That phrase is not optimism. It is resignation.

Every year, we say “Next year will be better.” Every year, we budget billions for drainage. Every year, we hold meetings, make promises, and issue warnings. And every year, the rain comes, and we are caught unprepared.

We are not cruising toward a solution. We are cruising toward the next flood, and the next one, and the one after that.

The water will not stop rising until we make room for it.

We can keep pretending. We can keep pointing fingers. We can keep building where we should not build.

Or we can finally do what is hard — demolish the illegal structures, restore the waterways, and enforce the laws we already have.

The choice is ours. But the flood will not wait