THERE was panic in Sogunle, Pleasure, Caaso and Kollington areas of Lagos State, on Thursday, following an  early morning downpour.  Some residents of the Lagos communities drowned during last Sunday’s  downpour with many of them yet to recover from the trauma of the floods.

The Thursday rain  threw residents  of Oyegunmade, Saka, Wuraola Ayinke, Alhaji Ajani,  Fabukade, Ajisegiri and Olori at Sogunle  into serious panic and confusion.
Some of the residents, who spoke to the Nigerian Tribune, lamented the pains that they had  been suffering, since  the Sunday downpour and expressed their fears at the Thursday rain.

A  resident, who identified himself as Damilola Motunrayo,  informed the Nigerian Tribune that two residents of Sogunle were swept away by the Sunday downpour, while properties worth several millions of naira were lost.

Motunrayo also stated that some of the residents, four days after the rain, were still scooping water out of their apartments,  as many of them had  “nowhere to relocate to. “

The resident said philosophically about the Thursday rain. “What do we do but wait and see. Since there is nothing we can do to stop the rain and we do not have the capacity to construct the kind of drainage needed.”

He  blamed some of the landlords at Sogunle for either their houses to water channel or  not clearing the shallow drainage system in the area.

In a similar development, residents of Caaso and Kollington in Alagbado area of the state have appealed to the Federal Government to come to their aid and save them from the flood “conundrum” at Caaso Bus Stop.

The residents stated that apart from the constant waste of time  during the rains, they had also in the last few months been losing people to flood, as the road was usually flooded.

The Nigerian Tribune gathered that parents, who saw signs of rain, prevented their children from going to school, while traders  also stayed indoors.

Meanwhile, Lagos State governor, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, has ordered the evacuation of students of the University of Maiduguri, who are either indigenes or residents of Lagos State. The institution was recently closed down by the authorities in the wake of Boko Haram  threats.

According to the General Manager/CEO of LASEMA, Dr Oluwafemi Oke-Osanyintolu, the agency had concluded arrangements for the evacuation, noting that it was the best thing to do to ensure the safety of the students.

He said: “The Lagos State government cannot fold its arms while its indigenes and residents, are exposed to danger.

“That is why the governor directed the immediate evacuation of those students to Lagos.”

The general manager, who noted further that the state government approached governance from the human angle, assured Lagosians that government would always be there for them at critical times.

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