How Did Enterprising Youth and Tradesmen Make Money in the Lagos Flood Disaster?

Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, has been shaken by severe floods caused by heavy rains in recent days. While this disaster negatively affected life in the city, it also briefly brought relief from the heatwave. Homes being submerged, businesses being damaged, and vehicles becoming unusable turned the lives of many families into a nightmare. However, in the midst of this massive chaos and destruction, a segment emerged that managed to generate income by creating commercial opportunities out of the disaster. This situation revealed the dual and equally contradictory face of the city in the face of disaster.

The floodwaters completely paralyzed countless important areas and main arteries of Lagos, such as Victoria Island, Lekki, Gbagada, Mushin, Ojo, Ajegunle, Egbeda, and Agege. Thousands of people mourned deeply as their homes and the goods they had saved for years were submerged. On the other hand, the situation unfolded in a completely different dimension for young people and some tradesmen who saw this moment of disaster as an opportunity and created their own economic cycle. Despite the destruction, the city's streets turned into a commercial market shaped entirely by a different operation to their own advantage. People's efforts to escape the flood literally brought the underground economy and temporary rescue services to a boiling point.

In various parts of Lagos, groups of young people began offering a professional rescue service to stranded drivers using wheelbarrows, wooden planks, and thick ropes. These young people demanded fees ranging from 5.000 to 20.000 Naira, depending on the size of the vehicle, the depth of the water, and the pushing distance. Desperate drivers gladly paid these prices to have their sunken and stalled vehicles transported to dry ground. Especially at points where deep waters accumulated, such as the Mile 2-Badagry expressway, young people earned their daily living by carrying merchants on their backs in exchange for keeping their clothes dry. Thus, the young people both provided practical solutions to people's urgent needs and created an unexpected source of income for their own wallets.

As the floodwaters did not block transportation, commercial tricycle and motorcycle operators also made a huge commercial profit due to the surge in transportation demand. Passengers stranded on the road and experiencing endless traffic misery seriously increased the revenues of street vendors selling umbrellas, raincoats, and bagged water by shopping from them. Auto mechanics practically went to work to repair engines that had taken in water and been exposed for a long time; in fact, it was stated that many engines needed to be completely replaced. Towing companies also had one of the busiest and most profitable days of the month, transporting hundreds of stranded vehicles to repair shops. This situation was proof of how dynamic and fast-adapting a structure the informal economy has, continuing its operations even in disaster situations.

Workers and young people who financially benefited from this process openly admitted that the earnings they made were an emotional and bittersweet experience. One of them stated that disasters are never wished for, but when floods occur, this situation serves as a source of livelihood for them. They stated that they earned high wages by taking great risks, such as staying in dirty water for hours and being exposed to sharp objects or open sewage. This situation, which could also be called disaster tourism or emergency opportunism, reveals Lagos's deep socio-economic structural problems and the creative survival instinct brought about by poverty. These developments pave the way for the city's infrastructure inadequacies to surprisingly reach the poorest and most disadvantaged segments by creating an informal employment field.