The Lagos State Commissioner for Waterfront Infrastructure Development, Dayo Bush-Alebiosu, has attributed the perennial flooding in the state to bad public habits and unauthorised land reclamation.
Bush-Alebiosu said this during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, explaining that these factors continue to make it difficult to address flooding issues in the coastal state.
“It is important to identify what the problem is in the first place, and the problem is nothing other than bad habits,” the commissioner said.
“I mean, illegal reclamation and illegal dredging affect it on one hand; habits affect it on the other hand,” he said on Tuesday’s edition of the breakfast show, which airs between 7 am and 9 am, Monday to Friday.
The commissioner noted that: “At the end of the day, I mean, those who, out of habit, dump refuse aren’t doing it because they want to make money from it. However, those who are reclaiming illegally are doing it for commercial purposes. So, you have both sides.”
The commissioner cited the dumping of human waste into the lagoon as one example of such bad habits.
“The first thing is that some people even dump faeces into the lagoon and things like that. This is the same lagoon that feeds us. You know you’re eating fish that’s feeding off faeces,” Bush-Alebiosu said. “So all of these things eventually will come back to bite us, and this is just a typical example of what we’re seeing at the moment.”
In recent weeks, persistent rainfall has led to floods in several parts of Lagos State, leaving residents stranded and movement grounded.
Footage and pictures of the flooding circulated on social media, with many Lagosians calling on authorities to address the challenge.
Watch his full interview below: