Olokesusi said this in Ibadan while presenting a paper entitled, ‘Lagos: The Challenges and Opportunities of an emerging African mega city.’
The NISER chief said the catastrophe could only be stopped if proper environmental checks were carried out.
“As a coastal city, vulnerability will increase in intensity of storms and storm surges will exacerbate infrastructure problems,” he said at the July edition of the NISER seminar series.
Olokesusi, whose disclosure was from a UN-Habitat sponsored study which spanned five years of data collection (2005 to 2010), said flooding was among the major environmental problems which had persisted in Lagos in spite of government’s efforts.
He said while Lagos was gradually emerging as a mega city, there were still some challenges to be overcome before the city could claim the title.
On the challenges of environmental degradation and climate change, he said there was rapid land conversion in the city which had been taking place on more vulnerable land.
The land, he said, included flood-prone areas and coastal locations.
Olokesusi further said that the pre-historic ecology of the city had been tremendously modified and was now human-dominated.
Apart from this, he said pollution was a menace, adding that there was the urgent need to control this through the application of proper technologies.
“The second dimension is that of acquiring the technology and developing appropriate legal framework, institutions and human capacity to bring the pollutants to acceptable levels that conform to international standards,’’ Olokesusi said.
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