While the Lagos State population has grown astronomically from about 0.07 million in 1911 to an estimated 21 million people in 2018, its infrastructure development has been quite slow.
The implication of this is the huge infrastructural deficit which, officials say, will require about $50 billion to bridge over the next five years.
Although the government, since the return to democracy in 1999, has focused on building infrastructure in its bid to close the yawning gap, the increase in population has, nevertheless, continued to exert pressure on available amenities.
Checks around the state show that infrastructural gap is not limited to areas where the lower rung of the society resides, it is also visible in the highbrow areas where high net-worth individuals and top government officials live and do business.
In many of these areas, including Alimosho, Surulere, Apapa, Ifaiko Ijaiye, Ojo, Somolu, Lekki, Ikoy, Victoria Island and Ikeja Government Residential Area (GRA), the infrastructure deficit is discernible. It is seen in transportation system, bad roads, poor sanitation, insecurity, insufficient healthcare facilities, clumsy service cables and collapsed drainage system with far reaching implications.
In July 2017, for example, torrential rainfall wreaked havoc in most parts of Lagos Island; sacked homes and left many stranded in their apartments.
Olusegun Ladega, chairman, Victoria Garden City (VGC) Property Owners and Residents Association, one of the estates that was affected, after conducting a study to find out the causes of the flooding said, “we realised that we were a basin receiving waters from other areas on account of the failure and non-functioning of a lot of the drainage systems in that area.”
“We had water cascading from off the road towards us because the highway itself that was constructed was not equipped with a collector drain,” he added.
Ladega said that the state government’s failure to enforce compliance with its own master plan was the major cause of the problem and that investment in real estate within the axis, worth over $1 trillion was at risk.
Wole Okunfulure vice chairman, Parkview Residents Association, Ikoyi who shared Ladega’s concern equally lamented the danger posed by flooding in his estate.
“Whenever it rains, the Lagos State side of Parkview is cut off for hours. The volume of water is in excess of what our drainage system can handle. So, when it rains, within 30 minutes all the drains are full to over spilling and it knocks off the entire estate.”
Within the Ikeja GRA, Joseph Adatan, a real estate agent says many of the streets lack proper drainages and water channels. According to Adatan, there is also the problem of indiscriminate running of service cables which deface the aesthetics of a supposed GRA in the state capital.
However, Wale Oluwo, commissioner for energy and mineral resources, Lagos State says the government is working to change the narrative through a special intervention initiative tagged, “Lagos urban regeneration programme’’.
The programme will see the state government take on Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Ikeja GRA in the first phase of its implementation and turn them into a model that other parts of the city will be benchmarked. It will involve the reconstruction of roads, taking down of the service cables from the poles and burying them underground, reconstruction of new drainage system to tackle perennial flooding, laying of gas reticulation pipelines to allow residents connect gas directly to homes, as against taking cylinders to gas stations for refill.
“If you go to Ikoyi and Ikeja GRA today, you will see roads that are not tarred. And in those streets, you have magnificent buildings. These make these places look like expensive slums. Our objective is to change that,” says Oluwo.
The commissioner explains further: “We intend to recover the right of way for water pipeline, streetlights and other infrastructure that should be accessible in a modern city. It is a special intervention programme for which we have acquired new equipment.”
The equipment include road printers and wheel leaders, driving rollers, hand operating rollers, an excavator, paver, tractors, wheel loaders, chip sealer, milling machine, sweeper machine and synchronous chip sealer.
The road printer, for example, has the capacity to pave 400 to 600 metres square in a one-day working shift of eight hours.
“These equipment have been procured in line with our efforts to reposition the Lagos State Public Works Corporation (LSWC) for the urban regeneration programme aimed at addressing environmental and infrastructural challenges in Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Ikeja G.R.A,” said Rotimi Ogunleye, the commissioner for physical planning and urban development, who represented Governor Akinwumi Ambode at the unveiling of the equipment in Lekki last week.
Tunji Bello, secretary to the state government observed that the paving stone machines and road printers would aid the delivery of roads that last longer even in waterlogged terrains.
“One of the problems we have in Lagos is road tarring because the water table in Lagos is very high and it does not allow most of our roads to last and so we needed equipment to make our roads last longer and part of it was to acquire the equipment which have just been tested,” said Bello.
JOSHUA BASSEY
