LAGOS

Flooding in Lagos: Message from the Commissioner for Environment

 

 

The kind of rain we witnessed in Lagos today eh...my goodness! So many parts of Lagos flooded. So many people won't be able to sleep in their homes tonight. The above pics were taken by individuals in different parts of Lagos State to show exactly what happened today.

Meanwhile, here's a message from the Lagos State Commissioner for Environment, Mr Tunji Bello, concerning the downpour today.

Dear Lagosians, please bear with us. Today's downpour has been heavier than normal as the state government had earlier warned. It has been raining since 5am in many areas and it hasn't stopped. The water level has risen incredibly so that the channels that are meant to discharge the water from the roads and drainages are completely locked because of the high tide and because both the Atlantic Ocean and the Lagoon that receive water from our channels have risen more than usual. Please be calm and do not panic. Once the rains subside, the water on the roads would gradually disappear. Our men are on the field working to manage this situation. Please endeavour to remain indoors as much as possible until the rain stops. Thank you for your understanding.

Four teenage girls

 and a baby found dead in restaurant

Five girls were found dead this morning in Ikeja, Lagos State, Southwest Nigeria, after yesterday’s heavy rains forced them to sleep in a poorly ventilated room in their restaurant where they worked.

The corpses of the four teenage-girls and a baby-girl, aged between three months and 18 years, were discovered this morning inside the stuffy room on Allen Avenue in Ikeja.


Neighbours told P.M.NEWS that the girls may have died of suffocation overnight in the room where they sought refuge after rains wreacked havoc in Lagos yesterday.
Two other girls, who also slept in the same room, were still in critical condition at Bodet Hospital at Alausa in Ikeja, it was gathered. They were said to be responding to treatment.

The five corpses were brought to Area F Police Station in Ikeja early today in a commuter bus.
P.M.NEWS learnt that a mother and her three-month-old girl were among the dead.

The victims, it was gathered, were brought sometime ago from neighbouring Benin Republic to work in a restaurant in Lagos. The restaurant owner, who was at the police station this morning, disclosed that she had brought them from Benin Republic to train them.

The two other girls still battling for life at Bodet Hospital, our correspondent gathered, are Nigerians.
The woman, walling at the station, disclosed that she had asked the girls to cook outside their restaurant yesterday and stay in the restaurant until the rains stopped.

“My girls don’t usually sleep in the restaurant,” she said, “I did not know that they slept in the restaurant yesterday. I asked them to cook outside the restaurant when they phoned me and said that water had entered the restaurant.”

“This morning, as I kept calling them, nobody was picking. I was worried and someone picked the call and told me that my girls are dead. I rushed here to confirm it. I can’t believe what I am seeing,” she lamented.
A man, who claimed to be the brother of one of the dead girls, was weeping at the station this morning.
Neighbours and friends who besieged the police station this morning wept and expressed shock. The five corpses were later taken to the Lagos State University Hospital, LASUTH

Mum 'killed kids

 and put them in boot'

A mum suffocated her two young children and placed their bodies in the boot of her car, a court heard yesterday.

Fiona Donnison, 45, allegedly killed Harry, three, and two-year-old Elise after her relationship with their dad broke down.

She is accused of murdering them to hurt her ex in the most extreme way possible. She then allegedly wrapped the youngsters in holdalls.

Jurors were told she had moved out of the family home six months earlier without telling Paul.
Christine Laing QC, prosecuting, said: "This is understandably a complex case particularly in relation to the motive.

"We say that responsibility lies not as a result of any mental illness but we say as a result of her personality."
She said Donnison, who was not married to Paul but had changed her name by deed poll, was a narcissist with an overdeveloped sense of self-importance and entitlement.
The couple, who had met in 1999 when both were married to other people, had a strained relationship, the court heard.
Donnison was also jealous and controlling of her partner and often exhibited highly manipulative behaviour, it was said.

She had enjoyed a successful career in financial services in the City, but was made redundant in July 2009.

It is alleged she moved out of the family home in Heathfield, East Sussex, with the children on September 1 after returning from a holiday to Ireland.

She had left a note saying "for the sake of the children I feel I have no choice but to move out... I'm sorry, Fiona".
Mrs Laing said the two children, described as "delightful, well-mannered and affectionate", were last seen alive on the afternoon of January 26 last year.
It is believed they were likely to have been killed sometime that evening.

Donnison denies two charges of murder