Nigeria: Four-year-old girl swept away by Lagos flood

A distraught father in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, is calling on the authorities to help search for his four-year-old daughter who was swept away in recent flash flooding.

The little girl, Azeezat, got caught in the floodwaters as her family was trying to escape the sudden inundation at their home in the Agege neighbourhood on Thursday, her father Basil Tariho told BBC Pidgin.

"We managed to escape from the flood when it took over our house, we stumbled by the drainage while running away, my baby lost her footing and the flood took her away," he said.

He explained that together with community leaders he searched the drains and the canals into which they run for his daughter, but they could not find her.

The floodwater also partly submerged Mr Tariho's house, destroyed his property inside and left the family homeless.

The flooding also destroyed other homes in the neighbourhood and injured several other people.

It is currently the rainy season in Lagos, but Agege is not normally so badly affected.

One problem was that the drains running alongside a recently reconstructed road in the area were built above the level of the houses. Once the drains had filled up water cascaded down into the homes nearby.