- My 80-yr-old mother, four other women still missing – Cleric
- We’re still searching for my sister, her son, says another resident
More than two weeks after a devastating flood wreaked havoc in the city of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, distraught relations of those killed in the deluge have not recovered from the shock inflicted by their irreparable loss.
Their trauma is now even aggravated by the fact that the whereabouts of the bodies of their relations washed away by the flood remain unknown. The corpses have yet to be found, dimming their hope of giving their dead relations a decent burial.
Forty eight-year-old Alhaji Tajudeen Babalaje, still sulks over the death of his 80-year-old mother, Madam Sikiratu Babalaje, in the flood. The octogenarian was swept away by the deluge along with four other women that fateful Friday in Abeokuta and their corpses have since not been found, in 4spite of relentless searches conducted round drainages, canals and other waterways in the city.
We have searched everywhere for them …the Ogun River, Berger and other areas, where we think the flood was likely to carry them but, up till this moment, we have not found them. We have even employed the services of fishermen to look for my mother, but all our efforts have not yielded any result. We have even taken spiritual steps in the Islamic way to look for them
Babalaje said that he and the family members of the four other women carried away by the flood along with his own aged mother, had searched for the deceased persons’ corpses to no avail and had even secured the services of fishermen to comb the rivers in the city for their dead relations.
The father of five said he had also sent distress calls to the members of the public on her missing mother and the four other women.
The Muslim cleric expressed regret at the incident, insisting that the death of his mother and the four other women in the flood remained a mystery.
He added that he had made some spiritual consultations and findings about his late mother and had been assured that she would be found one day.
Narrating how his mother and the four other women became victims of the flood, Babalaje said that they were all standing in front of their house at the Ijeun Titun area of Abeokuta, when they were suddenly swept away by the deluge.
He said, “My mother was staying in front of the house with the four other women and a child, when the flood came and carried them away. Later, we found the child that was with them, but we have not found my mother and any of the other four women.
“We have searched everywhere for them. We have searched the Ogun River, Berger and other areas, where we think the flood was likely to carry them to, but up till this moment, we have not found them.
“We have even employed the services of fishermen to look for my mother, but all our efforts have not yielded any result. We have even taken spiritual steps in the Islamic way to look for them, but up till now, we are still searching for them and have informed the state government and the members of the public to notify us, if they discover any human body around the river side.”
Thirty five-year-old Wahab Ajala is in the same situation with Babalaje. Ajala’s younger sister, Keji, died along with her four-year-old child, Ayomide, in the flood and their bodies have not been found.
Ajala, a resident of Ago Ijesha Street, Abeokuta, told our correspondent that Keji and her son were swept away by the flood from her shop located in the Ijeun Titun area of the city.
The building contractor further explained that her sister was carrying her son on her back when the flood suddenly covered them and unstrapped the child, but in her attempt to rescue her son from being carried away in the deluge, she was killed and both mother and child were eventually swept away. Their bodies, like those of the other victims, have not been found!
“When I came back from work on Friday, I noticed that no one wanted to come near me. I was later told that the flood had carried away my younger sister and her child while they were in her shop, where she sold Indomie and eggs,” Ajala said.
Ajala, who described the death of his sister and her child as unfortunate, said ever since the incident occurred, he had been in a sorrowful mood and had even had to move out of his rented apartment in the area because he could no longer endure living in a vicinity where his younger sister and her child were killed by flood.
He noted that since the incident, many other residents, who lost family members and belongings, had continued to move out of the area because of the fear of being caught in such a disaster the second time.
Ajala said, “The death of my sister and child was painful because she is the breadwinner of our family, she takes care of our parents. Even since she died, her husband has left the area due to the trauma caused by the loss. But till now, we have not found her and her child.
“It is an unfortunate incident. The flood was six feet high when I came back from work around past 7pm that Friday and I saw that it had taken over a story building.”
A resident, Ganiyu Egunjobi, who escaped death by whiskers during the deluge, said that he was with Keji and her child and even had offered to assist her with her child to enable her to cross to the other side of the bridge, when the flood suddenly swept him, too, away.
Egunjobi said that by the time he could rescue himself from the flood, as he held fast unto a plank of wood on the roof of a shop, it had already carried away the lady and her son, Babalaje’s mother and the four women, who he saw earlier while still being tossed about by the rampaging flood.
He said another resident of the area, one Saburi Mufutau, came to rescue him and some others from the flood.
“I was coming from a place and the flood caught up with me at one CAC Church. So, I decided to rush over the bridge before it submerged it. The rain was so much that I couldn’t cross over the bridge and I had to run for safety in Keji’s shop. When the rain was becoming too heavy, I told keji to let me help her with her child to cross over to the other side of the bridge, but she refused and told me that the rain won’t be much. But by the time I turned back, the flood had carried her and her child away. It also carried away one Alhaja Sikirat and the other women that I saw while I was struggling to save my life,”
he said.
