Oluwatosin Enesi
Tokunbo Wahab, the Lagos State Commissioner of Environment and Water Resources, apologized during a Channels Television interview on Thursday.
Wahab said, “I will start by saying to Lagosians, ‘We are sorry for the inconvenience caused due to nature’s cause yesterday morning.”
It will be recalled that there were reports that the heavy downpour in Lagos on Wednesday left millions stranded and many areas submerged.
Motorists were in gridlock and commuters stranded as the torrential rains which lasted for hours halted economic activities in Nigeria’s commercial capital.
Reacting to the development, the commissioner said the floods were not due to the government’s lack of planning.
He said, “It’s not for failure to plan that we had what happened yesterday,” Tokunbo said. “No, it was nature taking its full course. And we are sorry for those whose lives were disrupted: they could not go to work, they could not go to their marketplaces, they couldn’t go to school.”
According to him, the Lagos State Government had prepared for the situation and had early in the day deployed a team to manage the floods.
“Emergency teams were on the ground since around 4 a.m. I’ve been up since around 4 a.m. yesterday,” the commissioner said.
Wahab noted that the impacts of the floods were managed a few hours after, saying, “Nature will take its course. What we have to do is to mitigate the impact of nature on the environment. And that was what we did yesterday.”
Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government said it had deployed teams across the city to manage the floods and mitigate its impacts.
Our Reporter
