Hello there,
We are here again to engage you with real talk. What have you been up to? Achieving your goals we guess.

In our last newsletter, we visited the issue of child’s rights vis-à-vis child marriage where we sought for your input. It’s still a topic we will revisit later on. However, in this edition, we feel the necessity to briefly talk about the impact of this raining season on the good people of our country particularly Lagosians.

We are not about to bore you with history or long lecture on the topic of flood, it’s simply a practical consideration of the season and its effect on us. Raining season has become a sweet-sour time of the year for our people. To the farmers generally, it’s a good sign but to those settling on some water-logged areas in Lagos, it is a horrible nightmare. What is meant to be a blessing has turned horrific, the sight of the flood is nothing to write home about.

One of the victims of this year’s flood is a bookseller who lost his entire business worth hundreds of thousands of naira, not even a single book was salvaged. One could only imagine the aftermath of this terrible experience.

The hard-to-imagine part of this situation, is what the homeless and slum dwellers go through during these seasons- the fear, the uncertainty, the hopelessness, looking up to the hill from whence comes their help!
But the question is, why must we cry about the same thing every year? Is there not something that can be done to prevent the reoccurrence of this menace?

In our opinion, it is a case of induced disaster as opposed to a natural disaster, that ranges from bad drainage systems, improper waste disposal, lack of proper town planning, to inadequate settlement of internally displaced persons. Both the government and the people are to share in the blame.

We however believe that we can do better. We deserve a good life and can have it if only we can effectively do our part whether as individuals or as government. We can start with something as little as disposing our waste properly, it may appear insignificant but it’s a move in the right direction, while we wait for government to intervene with proactive policies and strong implementation structures to both salvage the current damage and prevent further occurrence.

While we wait, be of good cheer and daily live your best!