By Adewole Ireti
CITIZENS COMPASS—Recently, severe water erosion swept through homes, displacing families, damaging properties, and leaving many stranded without shelter or direction in Ikorodu, Lagos State. What should have triggered an immediate emergency response from the state government was instead met with a shocking and dismissive comment from the Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, who advised the affected residents to “vacate the area.”
Such a response is not only deeply disappointing but also a clear display of administrative incompetence and insensitivity to the suffering of ordinary Lagosians. This is not just a natural disaster. It is a reflection of governance failure under the APC-led administration in Lagos State.
One must ask: If the government is instructing residents to vacate their homes, where exactly are they supposed to go? Are they being advised to relocate to the king’s palace, the mayor’s compound, the police barracks, or simply into the streets? Telling people to vacate without a plan for relocation, shelter, or support is not governance,it is abandonment.
Thomas Hobbes once described the “state of nature” as brutish, nasty, poor, solitary, and short. In Lagos today, for the vulnerable and downtrodden, this is not a theory,it is reality. When public officials resort to telling citizens to fend for themselves in times of crisis, it means the social contract has been broken. The people gave power to leaders to protect them, not to push them into further misery.
The erosion problem in Ikorodu is not new. Residents have complained for years. Environmentalists have warned. Experts have offered solutions. Yet, little or nothing has been done. Drainage systems remain clogged, urban planning is ignored, and emergency preparedness is nearly non-existent in most suburbs of Lagos. The same pattern of neglect replays itself every rainy season, flood, displacement, and silence from the top.
Instead of words of empathy and a rollout of emergency plans, what the public got was a callous order to leave. That is not leadership; that is an abdication of duty.
It is time for the APC-led Lagos State Government to wake up to its responsibilities. The lives of the poor matter. Development is not about bridges and flyovers alone; it is about people,the woman who lost her shop to erosion, the children who slept on wet floors, the families with nowhere to run.
If the government cannot protect the people from natural disasters, then the least it can do is show compassion, take responsibility, and provide clear, actionable solutions and not harsh ultimatums.
I am of the opinion that, this could have been been the Immediate and short-term solutions
The state government must immediately provide shelter in public schools, community halls, or temporary camps for displaced families.
Supply food, clean water, medical care, and bedding to affected persons.
Deploy emergency teams to assess the most affected zones, identify the weak drainage points, and clear blocked canals or culverts.
Offer financial compensation or relocation grants to residents whose homes were destroyed or affected.
The Lagos State Government must not abandon its citizens to fate. If leaders cannot offer alternatives, they should not make pronouncements that worsen public despair. Thomas Hobbes warned of a society without a social contract, where the government fails to protect its people. That warning is no longer theory, it’s happening on our streets.
Leadership is not evacuation. Leadership is the solution.
Let the downtrodden breathe.
Lagos deserves better. Ikorodu deserves attention. And the people deserve leadership that works for them, not against them.
Adewole Ireti writes from Lagos
