Month: July 2017

THE SINKING CITY

There has pretty much been non-stop rain in Lagos for the past 7-days. However, in the last 2-3 days the rain has been very intense. Lagos has been experiencing rain leading to heavy flood on roads, homes and loss of items. Thankful, there hasn’t been any loss of lives so far and my prayer is that it remains that way… Amen.

Coupled with the terrible flood, in my area we haven’t had light for more than 2-weeks or so. Thankful we spend most times out of the house (because of work and school for the kids), but weekends when the kids want to watch TV, we turn on the generator which charges the inverter to keep light on. Of course after a couple of hours the inverter dies again and the cycle continues.

My family and I has been home all weekend because our street is so flooded that even my car (which is an SUV) can’t make it through the flooded road. All through yesterday – July 8yh, (the only vehicle that passed our street due to the bad flood was a lorry carrying waste which eventually stopped in the middle of the road and was unable to reach its final destination).

I know longer cook meals to leave in my freezer as the lack of light spoils it all which is a waste of money! We are slowly running out of food at home and I’m praying the rain stops before our food is totally exhausted!!!! I’m sure many homes in the area will be experiencing this disaster.

A lot of businesses probably didn’t open today as either staff couldn’t make it or customers couldn’t make it. Either or led to loss of revenue. But still at the end of the day OPEX must be paid…. Inflation chokes you as everything is so expensive!!!!!!!

My deep concern is “WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT”? Like seriously what’s going on? Lagos Island is sitting on a time bomb which is an imminent flood of some sort. It has no functional drainage or better still its totally non-existent. Any rain on the island will lead to flood!!!

All the taxes we pay what’s the use of funds? Nigeria needs severe accountability and transparency in its uses of the nation’s taxes. A country where poverty exceeds wealth due to corruption and selfish desire is a major cause for scream at this stage and not alert. Sadly, ignorance may just play in here as complains continue to fall onto deaf ears. After the raining season is over, nothing is done and next year we meet the same incident.

Is government so ignorant? Can government just do its work? Even if you do actually decide to use the funds to fix roads and provide power etc, there will still be plenty for selfish desires!!!!….. Let the masses just have better quality of life, please…. I’m crying out loud here!!!

Do we wait until one day a heavy flood sinks the whole city? How long can we continue like this? Lagos Island is sinking slowly. This is a matter of NATIONAL EMERGENCY!!!!!!

I really hope this article gets to someone in government. Nigerians are ready to commit to real change… let’s just do it and quit talking!!!!

Pictures below were taken on July 8th across several places in VI/Lekki axis. No photo shop done!

Leave a comment below and circulate the blog. Thanks…

PUSH BOUNDARIES IN INFRASTRUCTURE

Nigeria, my country for which I am so proud. But the basic necessities of life which can be so easily put in place has been totally ignored. Its so painful to see the poor suffer seemingly easy necessities of life because someone decided to be greedy and ignore responsibilities for which they have been given. Now let me break it down for you!

First and foremost, I am extremely passionate about infrastructure growth in Nigeria and Africa as a whole (especially developing economies). Why you may ask? Because infrastructure to me has a direct relationship to the quality of life. Yes… its just that simple. Why is it that the average life span in Nigeria is somewhere below 40-45years? Why is it that the Ameircan or European man/woman can live until 60, 70, 80 or even 100years old? Its all linked to the quality of life. I don’t know about you but my vision for Nigeria is a country that just works. It just has to work. It has no other choice but to work! A country where during rainy seasons I don’t have to fear that I would need a boat or yatch to leave my house. That’s my vision.

Let me give you an example (you should notice by now that I love giving examples as its all ‘’real life’’). During rainy season, my street looks like an ocean. Oh yes… its so bad that just yesterday it rained heavily and my daugther had to make her hair. Now, my salon is just infront of my house. No more than a 30-seconds walk. But guess what? Because of the heavy rain which led to incredible flood where people can actually drown and where cars stopped in the flood; I had to drive my daughter to the salon. Yes you heard right, drive and not take the 30-seconds walk. The salon which I earlier mentioned is across my house and just only a 30-seconds walk (or less). I didn’t only feel stupid doing this but I felt so angry and upset.

Let me give you another example, just over the weekend, my daughter’s lesson teacher arrived for tutorial sesion. Not only was he so upset, he was soaked and shivering. Why? I didn’t realise how bad the road was due to the heavy flood that he had to transport himself in the flooded road to my house for her tutorial. I felt really bad when I saw him. However, I admired and commended his dedication to his work that despite the rain and flood, he still made it for the tutorial. We agreed, that anytime there is such rain we will reschedule the tutorial as its just meaningless to enter the flood for lessons.

Let me give you one more example, for the past 3-days we have had no light! Oh yes… when PHCN managed to give us light, it was extremely low current that could barely carry most of the lights at home (of course the light didn’t carry any of the ACs or other home appliances). The light is so poor that the pathetic light PHCN provided totally destroyed my husband’s phone along with a few other appliances at home. What a shame!

Now, why I’m I saying this as you’re probably saying to yourself we know all this or we have or still witnessing even worse. Now truth is, we ALL as citizens must collectively work to ensure that Nigeria enjoys the basic neccsisties of life. This task is not left only to the Presidents or Minsters etc. We must all join hands to make things happens the way we want it.  It starts by paying your electriity bills. If you don’t have an electric meter at home – GO AND GET ONE IT IS FREE! The challeneges and deficit in the power sector interestingly enough starts with the consumers – that’s you and I. If we don’t pay our bills, the DISCOs suffer the losses. If the DISCOs suffer losses, they are unable to meet obligations due to other parts of the value chain (i.e. GENCOs and GASCOs). So again, we all need to just pay our bills and try to curb the losses.

I must commend the Federal Government (FG) in its recent effort to address the power challeneges in Nigeria. If you are yet to read the Power Sector Reform Program (PSRP) desgined by The World Bank Group, please do as it carries in it a lot of hope for the Nigeria power sector (of course if fully implemented and supported by the FG). So what I’m I saying here… pay your bills!!!!… If you are getting electricity and not paying your bills, please stop it, own up and pay. If you are engaged in electricity theft or have previous unpaid electricity bills – stop it!!!!… If you leave in a community where you are asked to contribute towards the rehabilitation of your road (and its legitimate) please do to ensure you and yoru community enjoy better roads.

I don’t know about you, but I hate it when during rainy season which leads to terrible flood, you see people literally swimming through the flood to get to their destination. Its so painful. All that mental and physical stress contributes to the poor quality of life which leads to stress and sadly death at an early age. So join me as we stand together to make Nigeria better by been more collaborative and supportive citizens.

Let me highlight here, while there are other infrastructure problems faced in Nigeria (such as clean water, good hospitals, education etc) that I didn’t touch, they are also equally important.

The pictures below are horrific but depicts some of the areas across the country suffered by citizens – all of which leads to poor quality of life! Thank you for reading and don’t forget to leave a comment.