The Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, has expressed fear that unless necessary measures are put in place, the state might be submerged under water in due course.
Hamzat cited the UK, and New York City as the towns where people are already moving away to safer places because of climate change.
Speaking today at the opening of a Strategic Stakeholders Meeting held at Radisson Blu Hotel, GRA, Ikeja, Hamzat noted that the biggest challenge in the country is that “we don’t know how to manage land and our physical planning laws.”
He said, “So the biggest challenge is how do we manage our laws? So when you say the land-owning family, what does that mean? Should we not define it?
“To build the red line, we paid compensation of N9bn without doing anything, we’ve not bought anything, but just to move people away and that’s why most states cannot do it, it’s not possible. So, Lagos is the only state in the world that has done something like that, like a rail on our balance sheet, others, Federal must be involved.
“In the UK, fourteen per cent of London city, the rest is the Federal Government, New York underground, the same thing, so how do we manage our lands? If our ministry of justice, our lawyers and our judges don’t have this proper understanding that the future of our children is threatened when these cases come to court, then we are missing the point.
“Lagos State, because of our geography, because of our population, because of our size, we are 22 million, we occupy only 0.4% or less than 0.38% of the land mass of Nigeria, and we are responsible for 10% of the people, so there is a mismatch and we have 180-kilometer shoreline, so we are surrounded by water. Today, Lagos, New York City, they are sinking,” he said.
Hamzat identified three existential threats against the state, extreme heat, climate change because of sea level rising adding and high rainfall, “so in the next 20, 25 years, our priorities must change. So I should be able to say this and that estate must go. So how do we make the laws, If not, our state is threatened.”
“So how do we come together as a people to look at this existential threat to our survival, to protect our state and change our laws, so our lawyers must know it, our judges must know to know for us to survive. In the city of New York now, they’ve stopped high-rise approval for the next few years because the city is sinking. They are smart!” he concluded.
