Now that Lagos is deep in the rainy season, life has become very difficult and unbearable for many of its residents, as it is not uncommon to see street and community roads as well as major highways flooded by rain water.
In many places such as Abule Egba, Agbado Ijaiye, Agege, Okota, among others, it has become a recurring decimal to see runoff submerging an entire road or a section of it. Vehicles often break down while trying to make their way through pools of water, while it is a common sight to have pedestrians waddling through puddles with rolled up trousers and shoes held in their hands.
Another common form of pains Lagosians are often made to undergo is the gridlock which usually greets any downpour as a result of bad portions of roads, a situation that often leads to loss of useful man-hours.
According to Inside Lagos’ findings, in some instances, like the case of the downpours recorded for many days last week, many people going to or coming from Abule-Egba and its environs, had to waddle through pools of water that had reached knee level in a bid to get to their respective destinations. This they did while also having to trek for several miles due to the ensuing logjams and unavailability of commercial buses as well as motorcycles (okadas).
While narrating her ordeal to Inside Lagos after one of such downpours, Miss Yetunde Omojola revealed that despite her phobia for okadas, she was very desperate and even praying to find any. This, according to her, was as a result of the fact that no single commercial bus was on ground to take her to her destination, which was Sanngo.
”The crowd on that day was massive and everyone was trouping like ants to their destination since there were no buses coming. Despite the fear I always nurse for taking okadas, I was even praying for one to come by, but none did. It’s a day I won’t forget for some time, because I had to trek from Agege to Ahmadiya Bus Stop, before I could miraculously get a vehicle. By the time I got home in the night, I was too tired to do anything meaningful; all I had to do was to take some painkillers and go to bed, since I had to wake up early the following day to prepare for work,” Miss Omojola narrated.
Omojola’s ordeal is not different from those of many others who are often made to go through such a gauntlet of hardship all in a bid to put food on their tables. Similar to the young woman’s experience is that of an operator of a tricycle popularly known as Keke Marwa, who was spotted by Inside Lagos while trying to revive his broken-down tricycle right in the middle of a puddle at Ago-Palace way at Okota.
“This hardship is too much. Anytime it rains, life becomes extremely difficult. Many of us often have to park our tricycles somewhere for fear that they could break down, because the roads, which have for ages been in a terrible shape, often become worse after downpours.
“Not all of us have jeeps, we therefore call on the government to come to the grassroots, look at our plights and provide for us one of the things we crave most from the government– good roads,” the Keke Marwa operator lamented.
