Five Cities, One Flood, Same Story: How West Africa Paid Billions To Stay Dry — And Still Drowned

Beyond Funds — Allocated, Announced, Diverted, Delayed, And Too Often Never Turned Into Drains – this discipline report by NOP NIGERIA throughout 5 main cities in three West African nations uncovered large-scale misconduct and missed alternatives of turning waste disaster into an power goldmine

LAGOS | ABUJA | UYO | ACCRA | LOMÉ — November 2026

The Journey

This story was not written from a desk in Lagos. For fifteen weeks, NOP NIGERIA travelled 4,800 kilometres by highway and air — from the waterlogged streets of Idimu in Lagos to the manicured, instantly flooded avenues of Wuse 2 in Abuja, to the fish market at Itam in Uyo, to the stinking banks of the Odaw River in Accra, to the clogged retention ponds of Hedzranawoé in Lomé.

The reporter stood in floodwater as much as knees. This newspaper walked drainage channels that exist solely on paper, and knocked on the doorways of ministries, sat with market ladies at 5:30 a.m., adopted waste pickers, and requested one query in three nations: Where did the cash go?

What this on-line newspaper discovered was not a narrative of poverty. It was a narrative of cash — allotted, introduced, diverted, delayed, and too usually by no means was drains. And inside that failure was a second story: a goldmine buried within the very trash that’s drowning us.

The Rain That Did Not Discriminate

The rain didn’t discriminate. In June 2026, it fell on Lagos and turned Victoria Island, Lekki and Lagos Island into rivers. It fell on Abuja and swallowed Wuse 2, Gudu and Maitama. It fell on Accra on June 29 and killed at the least 12 individuals in a single evening. It falls yearly on Lomé and fills the markets of Hedzranawoé.

Five cities, three nations, one query: why, after billions spent, does the water maintain successful?

The reply, this investigation now reveals, is not only local weather change. It is governance.

Lagos: ₦106 Billion And A Four-Year Drain

The discipline investigation started in Lagos, and this took this newspaper to Princess Abiola Adeniyi Street in Idimu. Residents there instructed NOP NIGERIA {that a} drainage undertaking initially scheduled for completion in six months has dragged on for 4 years. A caterpillar sat close to Oba Amusa Avenue, idle. Business homeowners stated life has been depressing since work started.

“We have never experienced flooding on this scale before the construction began,” Tunji Are, a resident, instructed this newspaper. “We saw the commencement of the drainage project as a blessing, but it has now become a serious problem for us. Almost four years after the work started, the contractors have only been able to construct one side of the drainage. Whenever it rains, floodwater flows into our premises because there is nowhere for it to drain.”

That is Lagos in miniature: a undertaking meant to unravel flooding now causes it.

Yet the cash is actual. Between January and May 2026, Lagos State obtained about ₦1.49 billion from Nigeria’s Ecological Fund, in response to information from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation. Separately, the state budgeted about ₦90.78 billion in 2026 for drainage building, dredging, erosion management and rehabilitation. Yet its first-quarter 2026 price range efficiency report confirmed some main drainage and flood-control initiatives had not recorded expenditure in any respect.

An evaluation of Lagos price range implementation stories reveals roughly ₦106.59 billion was dedicated to flood management and drainage in simply over a yr, together with ₦48.63 billion for statewide drainage building and dredging. The World Bank estimates flooding prices the Lagos financial system as much as $4 billion yearly.

When these figures had been put to Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, he didn’t deny the geography. He insisted the state had made progress.

“Over the past few months, we have stated that we have achieved 75 to 80 per cent success with respect to flooding,” Wahab instructed journalists on November 7, 2026, after an inspection of Odo Iya Alaro, Surulere and Osborne Foreshore. “But you cannot have 100 per cent success against flooding unless you want to play the ostrich. Lagos is a coastal state, and some areas are below sea level.”

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In a separate interview on Channels Television, Wahab added: “Must we always get flooded? I will tell you no. But can we realistically, as a coastal state, avoid flash flooding? I will tell you no. So, what do we do? There must be a balance. We must mitigate the impact of our realities.”

He blamed the “elephant in the room” — local weather change, tidal lock, sea-level rise, and wetlands reclaimed for growth. “About a third of Lagos is water. We have lagoons, swamps, creeks and rivers, while some parts of the state are below sea level. Areas that used to be wetlands have been reclaimed for development, but those wetlands served as nature’s sponge,” Wahab stated in June 2026.

But in Idimu, residents are usually not asking for 100 per cent. They are asking for one accomplished drain.

Wahab additionally acknowledged assortment failures. “We acknowledge collection failures, underperforming PSP operators and operational bottlenecks. However, it is misleading to suggest that Lagos has no plan beyond clearing refuse after it accumulates,” he stated in response to criticism from Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the ADC governorship candidate, who described components of Lagos as “stinking.”

Rhodes-Vivour’s counter-argument, which we heard echoed in Mushin, Mile 2 and Ajegunle, is easy: “If you’re not packing the refuse, it will stack up and be washed into the drainage by the rain. Citizens don’t even have to dump their refuse in the drains. The rain will do it for them.”

That political battle had a consequence. In October 2026, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu declared a state of emergency on waste administration after inspecting the Olusosun dumpsite in Ojota. He later ordered the Managing Director of and Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Dr Muyiwa Gbadegesin, to resign over heaps of refuse littering main roads and drainage channels. By November 11, 2026, Sanwo-Olu had sacked Gbadegesin and appointed Olajuwon Akinyemi as Acting MD, with Dr Tijani Olorunwa as Acting Director of Operations.

A sack shouldn’t be a system. But it’s a sign that even the federal government is aware of the system failed.

Abuja: The City Designed Never To Flood

NOP NIGERIA flew to Abuja anticipating order. We discovered water.

Between June 2023 and December 2025, the Federal Capital Territory obtained about ₦1.24 billion from the Ecological Fund — ₦183.84 million in 2023, ₦395.49 million in 2024, and ₦659.56 million in 2025. Yet Trademore Estate in Lugbe, Lokogoma, Galadimawa and Yangoji nonetheless flood each wet season. In June 2023, flooding submerged Trademore, affected about 116 homes and compelled the FCTA to declare components of the property a catastrophe space.

On August 15, 2026, floodwater surged by means of Wuse 1 and Wuse 2, Garki, Katampe, Gudu, Durumi and Gaduwa — the manicured coronary heart of town the place ministers reside. Experts blamed years of encroachment on inexperienced areas, floodplains and pure drainage channels, with weak enforcement leaving the capital extra weak. The FCT Minister then ordered demolitions of constructions on waterways — after the water had already accomplished its personal demolition.

The former performing Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Air Vice Marshal Akugbe Iyamu (retd.), has turn into the conscience of this debate. He instructed NOP NIGERIA in firm different mediamen that the issue shouldn’t be the funds; it’s the method the funds are directed.

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“Between 2023 and 2025, 109 billion Naira was released for the Ecological Fund. What have the states used it for?” Iyamu requested. “Our problem is not the finances; it is the way the finances are directed.”

He was additionally unsparing on Abuja: “The Abuja case is irreversible damage. Abuja was made as a purpose-built city. Kenzo Tange, who designed Abuja, said Abuja can never flood. Can never! Because the relief lines were 100 meters.”

Today, these reduction traces are homes, retailers and fences. The metropolis that was designed to breathe was choked by approvals.

Accra: $350 Million, 16 Months Of Silence

If Lagos is a narrative of sluggish execution, Accra is a narrative of cash frozen whereas individuals drowned.

Ghana has obtained almost $1 billion in flood-control financing since 2000, with $723 million focused particularly at Greater Accra — but 12 individuals died in a single evening of rain on June 29.

The centrepiece, the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) Project, carries a $350 million World Bank envelope after a $200 million approval in 2019 was topped up with $150 million in 2023.

NOP NIGERIA walked the Odaw at Circle, Kaneshie and Odawna. The channel is a monument to silt and plastic. Drone photographs from June 2026 present the identical silt banks at Avenor that contractors claimed to have eliminated.

But the World Bank, in its May 2026 report, downgraded GARID to “Moderately Unsatisfactory,” citing fiscal controls imposed by Ghana’s Ministry of Finance. The Bank stated implementation had been “significantly constrained by fiscal measures introduced by the Ministry of Finance during 2025,” together with capping disbursements and sweeping GH₵13.8 million from GARID’s account.

By April 2026, solely about 40% of the $350 million had been disbursed — $137 million — and there had been no disbursements for about 16 months, from November 2023 to March 2026.

Worse, the Auditor-General discovered funds for unverified dredging volumes on the Odaw: contractors claimed 300,000 cubic metres of silt eliminated, impartial checks discovered solely 80,000. The Odaw has misplaced 60% of its water-carrying capability since 2010, not from heavier rain, however from refuse. Accra generates 3,000 metric tons of waste each day, solely 65% will get collected, and the remaining chokes the drains the cash was meant to clear.

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Professor Chris Gordon, certainly one of Ghana’s most revered environmental scientists, referred to as it essentially an institutional coordination and governance failure, not only a rainfall downside. We heard that line repeated by engineers on the Ghana Hydrological Authority (HYDRO), who in November 2026 had been nonetheless inspecting 77 storm drain initiatives and 163 channel enchancment works beneath the 2026 National Flood Control Programme — work that ought to have been completed earlier than June.

The human value was laid naked by Interior Minister Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, who instructed Parliament the June 29 storm displaced almost 39,000 individuals throughout Greater Accra and killed 18 extra individuals within the Central Region over the next weeks. President John Mahama authorised the discharge of 300 million cedis from the contingency fund for emergency reduction — cash launched inside days, after the flood-specific undertaking designed to stop it had gone with out significant disbursement for 16 months.

The political fallout was swift. On August 7, 2026, President Mahama nominated Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, MP for Klottey Korle, as Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, succeeding the late Dr Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, who died within the August 2025 helicopter crash. The Environment Ministry had operated with out a substantive minister for almost a yr.

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When Mahama swore her in on August 29, 2026, he stated: “Our response to climate change must also become more practical and urgent. Flooding, coastal erosion, changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures are already affecting communities, livelihoods and public infrastructure.”

Dr Agyeman-Rawlings, who served on Parliament’s Environment Committee and has been vocal on city flooding, now inherits the GARID file — and the query of whether or not Ghana will lastly let its personal flood cash circulation.

Lomé: The Quiet Drowning

Lomé doesn’t make international headlines when it floods. It ought to.

Despite Togo authorities’s efforts to take care of and broaden storm drainage, city flood disasters stay recurrent. A scientific stock of Lomé’s 172 paved roads discovered roads constructed with out drains, gutters with out retailers, and open gutters and makeshift trenches constructed by residents themselves. The retention basin community consists of 36 ponds, however 4 rely on pumping — hazardous as a result of pumping power shouldn’t be assured.

In Greater Lomé, 53.4% of peri-urban suburbs have excessive or very excessive susceptibility to flooding, pushed by rising urbanization and altering local weather, but additionally by unplanned enlargement outdoors a coherent grasp plan. Research reveals enlargement largely continued in an unplanned method, with failure to respect non-building zones, building in river beds, lack of sanitation, and failure to interconnect stormwater methods.

The European Commission supported Lomé from 2007 to 2020 to enhance flood drainage, but low-income areas stay most affected. Now Togo has launched the RAINE interceptor community and a $110 million Togo Urban Transformation Program to finance stormwater drainage — one other promise to repair what earlier guarantees didn’t.

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In Kodjoviakope, NOP NIGERIA met youngsters who don’t wait for presidency. They dig their very own trenches. They are the actual flood company of Lomé.

Uyo: The City That Refused To Wait

Our closing Nigerian cease was Uyo — smaller, quieter, and, paradoxically, essentially the most hopeful.

Akwa Ibom State launched the Ibom Clean and Green Initiative in 2023. The plan: make Uyo the primary Nigerian state capital to realize 70% waste-to-resource conversion by 2030.

The state produces 600 tonnes of waste each day. 70% is natural, largely from markets and palm oil processing.

At the Itam Market, a 1MW biogas plant now powers chilly rooms for fish sellers. The plant was constructed by Renewable Waste Solutions with state help. Fish spoilage has dropped by 40%, in response to market leaders.

“Cold room used to cost 5,000 naira a day on diesel,” fish dealer Emem Akpan instructed us, standing beside buzzing chilly rooms that scent of fish, not rot. “Now it’s 1,500 on biogas. I save money, and the market doesn’t smell.”

Uyo’s problem is scale. The state wants 12 extra vegetation to cowl all main markets. But the mannequin is working, and donors are watching.

Trash To Cash: The Missed Goldmine

Beyond floods is one other alternative — to show trash, one of many core causes of flooding, to money. Our journey throughout the 5 cities confirmed that efforts required to show tears of flooding to cheers is minute in comparison with the losses in lives and properties.

Africa generates about 62 million tonnes of municipal strong waste per yr, in response to the UN Environment Programme. West Africa alone accounts for almost 30% of that.

In the 5 cities on the heart of this story, the maths is sobering:

– Lagos: ∼13,000 tonnes each day. Only 40% formally collected, LAWMA 2024 knowledge.
– Abuja: ∼3,000 tonnes each day. Less than 50% reaches designated landfills, Federal Ministry of Environment 2023.
– Accra: ∼2,400 tonnes each day. About 60% collected, however solely 5% recycled, AMA Sanitation Report 2025.

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– Lomé: ∼800 tonnes each day. Collection round 55%, Togo Ministry of Sanitation.
– Uyo: ∼600 tonnes each day, assortment under 45%, Akwa Ibom Waste Board 2024.

More than 60% of all this waste is natural — meals scraps, market waste, sewage sludge. That’s the identical materials that may be was biogas, electrical energy, and fertilizer.

The World Bank estimates that if West African cities captured simply 50% of their natural waste for power, they might generate sufficient electrical energy to energy 2.3 million properties. Yet as we speak, most of it’s burned, buried, or dumped in lagoons.

UNEP’s Director of the International Environmental Technology Centre, Keith Alverson, has warned: “Every year, an estimated 11.2 billion tonnes of solid waste is collected worldwide and decay of the organic proportion of solid waste is contributing about 5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

Methane from that waste is 28 to 36 occasions stronger than CO2 at trapping warmth, in response to the US EPA, cited by UNEP. In different phrases, the trash that blocks our drains can be heating our planet.

Accra: A Market Woman’s Biogas Dream

At 5:30 a.m., Ama Serwah pushes a wheelbarrow piled excessive with banana peels, sachet water luggage, and rotting greens by means of the slim alleys of Accra’s Agbogbloshie market. The scent hits you first. Flies comply with. By 8 a.m., the pile shall be set on hearth, or left to rot till rain washes it into the Odaw River.

“I used to see only dirt,” Ama instructed NOP NIGERIA, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Now I see money we are burning.”

Ama is a part of a pilot with a Ghanaian startup referred to as Bioenergy Africa. Instead of dumping her market waste, she now types it into inexperienced bins. Twice per week, a tricycle collects it and takes it to a small biodigester in Korle Gonno.

The digester produces two issues: cooking gasoline and natural fertilizer. Ama will get free gasoline cylinders for her meals stall and sells the fertilizer to city farmers for GH₵15 per bag.

“I save GH₵80 a month on gas,” she says. “And my customers like that my food is cooked with ‘clean fire.’”

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Accra loses an estimated GH₵200 million yearly to waste administration prices, flooding, and well being impacts, in response to a 2023 Ghana EPA research. But town additionally produces sufficient natural waste to generate 40MW of electrical energy — sufficient to energy 30,000 households.

The problem: infrastructure. Ghana has fewer than 10 operational waste-to-energy vegetation. Most waste nonetheless finally ends up on the Kpone landfill, which receives 2,000 tonnes each day and is projected to shut by 2028.

We sat on the lounge of lodge at Accra area with Sophia, a greener life advocate who works and speaks for one of many firms which are are the forefront of turning waste to wealth in Ghana.

“We are working assidously with the support of the government and the ministry of environment to ensure we turn our waste to wealth, and results are evident on this,” she stated, including, “it is a commitment we have to guarantee a cleaner Ghana, healthier Ghanaians.”

Lomé, Abuja, Lagos: Three Variations On One Idea

In Lomé’s Kodjoviakope neighborhood, 17-year-old Kossi Mawuli doesn’t go to the dump to scavenge. He goes to earn.

Kossi works with Waste2Energy Togo, a cooperative that buys plastic waste by the kilo. 1kg of PET bottles = 150 CFA. The plastic is shredded, melted, and was pellets which are bought to producers. The natural fraction from close by markets is fed right into a 500KW biogas plant that powers the cooperative’s workshop.

Last yr, Kossi made 320,000 CFA — sufficient to pay his senior secondary college charges.

“I tell my friends: the street is not dirty, it is a bank,” he burst into an infectious laughter that nearly acquired NOP NIGERIA to lose guard and comply with swimsuit.

Togo’s nationwide waste technique, launched in 2022, targets 30% waste restoration by 2030. But funding is the bottleneck. Only 12% of Lomé’s waste is presently processed. The relaxation clogs gutters and contributes to flooding that prices town an estimated 18 billion CFA yearly.

In Abuja, the paradox is starker. The metropolis generates 3,000 tonnes each day. The Apo and Mpape dumpsites are mountains of trash, usually on hearth. But a 2024 feasibility research by the Rural Electrification Agency discovered that Abuja’s natural waste may produce 25MW of biogas electrical energy and 90,000 tonnes of fertilizer yearly.

Enter Green Capital Energy. The firm signed an MoU in 2023 to construct a 10MW waste-to-energy plant on the Mpape dumpsite. It will take 500 tonnes of waste each day and energy 15,000 properties.

“We’re not just managing waste,” says CEO Fatima Bello. “We’re mining it. Every truckload is fuel.”

The problem: assortment. With lower than 50% of waste formally collected, the plant dangers gas scarcity. The firm is now paying casual waste pickers 2,000 naira per tonne to deliver waste immediately.

In Lagos, the size is continental. With 20+ million individuals, Lagos produces 13,000 tonnes of waste each day. That’s 4.7 million tonnes a yr — heavier than 35 Eiffel Towers. LAWMA spends over 20 billion naira yearly on assortment and disposal.

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Yet Lagos additionally leads Nigeria in waste innovation. At the Epe landfill, Lagos Waste-to-Energy Limited is constructing a 60MW plant. It will burn 2,250 tonnes of waste each day and feed energy into the nationwide grid. Construction started in 2024, with commissioning anticipated in 2027.

Smaller gamers are shifting quicker. BioNi operates 15 biodigesters throughout markets in Mushin, Oyingbo, and Mile 12. Market associations pay a month-to-month charge, and in return get biogas for cooking and fertilizer for peri-urban farms.

“Before, we paid to dump waste. Now waste pays us,” says Alhaja Kudirat, Iyaloja of Mile 12 Market.

Wahab confirmed the route: “Beyond emergency interventions, Lagos is investing in Modern Transfer Loading Stations, Material Recovery Facilities, recycling, composting and the Epe waste-to-energy project.” The goal, he stated, was to maneuver away from a long time of “pick-and-dump” practices in the direction of a system during which waste may very well be transformed into power and financial worth.

The Economics And The Climate Math

Let’s do the maths.

1 tonne of natural waste can produce 120 cubic meters of biogas — sufficient to prepare dinner for six households for a month — plus 300KWh of electrical energy and 200kg of natural fertilizer.

In Lagos, 1 tonne processed = 18,000 naira in power + fertilizer worth. In Accra, 1 tonne = 900 cedis. In Lomé, 1 tonne = 75,000 CFA.

Scale that up and Lagos alone is sitting on 4.7 billion naira value of power yearly — presently being buried.

The World Bank estimates that each 1,000 tonnes of waste processed into power creates 20 direct jobs and 50 oblique jobs. The mannequin shouldn’t be charity. It is business.

And the local weather case is even stronger. If Lagos, Accra, Lomé, Abuja, and Uyo captured simply half their natural waste, they’d reduce emissions by 1.2 million tonnes CO2 equal yearly. Under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, cities may promote carbon credit from waste initiatives — one other income stream.

UNEP’s expertise in Durban proves it could work. The Durban Landfill Gas-to-Electricity Project, which began in 2004, extracts methane from landfills and makes use of it to run turbines. It gives about three megawatts of electrical energy and has prevented roughly 2.5 million metric tons of CO2 equal emissions. In 2017, eThekwini Municipality obtained an Honorary Climate and Clean Air Award for a undertaking described as the primary in Africa, and nonetheless one of the crucial profitable on the earth.

Ethiopia’s Reppie plant in Addis Ababa — Africa’s first waste-to-energy incineration plant — incinerates 1,400 tons each day, roughly 80% of town’s garbage, whereas supplying a major share of family electrical energy. If Addis can do it, why can’t Accra, Lagos and Lomé?

What Must Change — Before Next June

Across all 5 cities, one thread connects them: early warnings existed, cash existed, however execution didn’t. Nigeria’s Hydrological Services Agency mapped over 14,000 high-risk communities throughout 266 LGAs in 33 states and the FCT earlier than the 2026 season. Ghana’s Flood Early Warning System was absolutely operational, but no public flood warning was issued earlier than the June 29 floods.

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The human value shouldn’t be summary. Nationwide in Nigeria, NEMA reported floods claimed 231 lives, affected 315,762 individuals, displaced 113,367, broken 40,493 homes and destroyed 46,304 farmlands. In Ghana, at the least 30 deaths had been recorded throughout Greater Accra and central areas after June 28-29.

Experts like Barakat Oloyede, a co-founder of Climate Alpha in Lagos and Sophia, a greener life advocate in Accra agreed, in separate interviews with NOP NIGERIA, on three pressing steps:

The first is mandate separation. This in accordance Barakat Oloyede needs to be mirrored after Rwanda and Kenya the place residents, households and markets are required to separate natural waste. “It would cuts processing costs by 40%,” she stated.

The second is de-risk funding. According to the consultants, this step ensures energy buy agreements for waste-to-energy vegetation in order that banks will lend. A 10MW plant prices $40-$60 million. Banks nonetheless see waste as dangerous.

Pay them, practice them, and provides them gear is how the 2 professional captured the third step, which is formalisation of Waste Pickers. They already accumulate 30% of recyclables in these cities, and they need to be inspired and formalised to do extra.

Ghana’s Sanitation and Pollution Control Act 2024 and Nigeria’s National Waste Management Policy 2023 are steps in the proper route. Implementation is subsequent.

But the deeper lesson from our journey is political, not technical.

In Lagos, a governor needed to sack an company head to indicate he was severe. In Accra, a president needed to appoint a brand new surroundings minister after a yr with out one, and launch emergency funds after the preventive funds had been frozen. In Abuja, a former NEMA chief is asking the place ₦109 billion went. In Lomé, youngsters are digging their very own drains.

Back in Accra, Ama’s wheelbarrow is now half full. She not dumps all the things. The peels go to Bioenergy Africa. The plastics go to a recycler. Only the true trash is burned.

“My daughter asked me why the market smells less,” Ama says. “I told her because we stopped wasting waste.”

In Lomé, Kossi is saving to purchase his personal tricycle. In Abuja, Fatima is hiring 50 extra pickers. In Lagos, Alhaja Kudirat is lobbying for biogas in each market. In Uyo, Emem is increasing her chilly room.

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They are usually not ready for excellent coverage. They are turning trash into money, one kilo at a time.

Last Line

Across West Africa, the message is spreading. Trash shouldn’t be the top. It’s the start. And for thousands and thousands like Ama, Kossi, and Emem, that starting smells loads like cash.

More importantly, till Lagos, Abuja, Accra, Uyo and Lomé deal with environmental budgets as sacred — revealed, tracked, audited, and spent earlier than the rains, not after the funerals — the story will repeat subsequent June.

The rain is pure. The drowning is man-made. The resolution, as this investigation reveals, is already in our bins.

NOP NIGERIA

Methodology: This investigation is predicated on 15 weeks of discipline reporting in Lagos, Abuja, Uyo, Accra and Lomé, interviews with residents, market leaders, waste pickers, entrepreneurs and officers, and evaluation of price range paperwork from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (Nigeria), the World Bank GARID Implementation Status Report (May 2026), the Ghana Auditor-General’s findings, UNEP and UNFCCC knowledge, and official statements from the Lagos State Ministry of Environment and Water Resources and the Presidency of Ghana.