Lagos – The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) on Sunday appealed for collaboration to clean up all drainage channels to check flooding in Lagos state.

Mr Kehinde Afolabi, the Engineer in charge of Lagos West, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

Afolabi said that the three tiers of government need to collaborate to desilt drains in the state to tackle erosion.

According to him, blocked drains causes flooding, which in turn destroys the roads.

He stated that the FERMA had begun to desilt drains on federal roads, adding that the collaboration would achieve greater results.

“The major challenge with our roads are drainage related problems, that means most of our drains are blocked, there is the need for us to embark on daily desilting of drains all across the state.

“There is also the need for the state, local and federal governments to do desilting at the same time to control flooding,” he said.

Afolabi explained that blocked drains were due to some human activities such as the dumping of tyres and debris in the manholes and other channels.

He added that when the drains were stuffed, and it rained, the water would have no passage to flow through and so spills onto the roads and environs.

Afolabi, who is also the acting Chairman, Federal Roads Committee on Surveillance and Action against Road Side Trading and Other Forms of Road Abuse (FERSCARA), said FERMA was clamping down on road abusers.

He said that FERSCARA had increased its surveillance against hoodlums who had devised new ways of expanding pot holes for economic gains.

“Any particular pot hole you see, overnight they go and dig it dipper so that when there is accident they can operate.

“There are a lot of abuses on our roads, people encroach and do all kinds of things like building kiosks on our right of way, car washes divert water on our highways and we are clamping down on all abuses.

“We can ask road abusers to vacate our right of way and if there are damages we can ask them to repair it or arrest them,” he said.

Afolabi said that some car wash points along the airport road had been made to vacate the road.

He stated that action was also being taken on the Apapa/Oworonshonki Expressway where some drains were diverted to the carriageway.

These, he noted were part of efforts being taken to maintain and keep the roads safe as well as elongate their life span.

/NAN