12 victims swept away
BY AKINWALE ABOLUWADE, IBADAN
Residents of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, are currently living in palpable fear as flooding occasioned by downpours continues in the year with several cases of deaths recorded. Since the advent of the rainy season in the current year, no fewer than 12 victims have been swept away leaving the people in distress and sorrow.
Those living in flood prone communities are worse hit for it as canals, ponds and river channels get overfilled with continuous downpours.
At the last count, five lives were lost near Agbofieti community, All Saints Road as the bridges in the area got submerged by a mass of running water. Of these five were a woman and two siblings who were students of a school in the neighborhood.
It was learnt that an accident occurred as the siblings who were returning from school got into a fix when they reached a culvert that was built with planks. They were glad that a woman arrived at the spot as this, for them, would be a helping hand. Just as they had hoped, the woman offered to walk them across the wooden culvert.
However, at some point while trying to cross the river, it was learnt that the planks broke and the woman alongside the two kids were swept away. While the elderly sibling, who got badly injured, luckily escaped, the woman and the younger sibling could not make it as they were swept away.
Their lifeless bodies were seen floating in the river the next day. The rescuers, alongside their family members, buried them by the riverside as the custom demands amid hue and cry. The parents could not be easily consoled; they were ushered down home by sympathizers who thronged the burial site.
Before that incident, two young folks who undermined the power of the flood water were swept away. Their corpses were recovered some distance away from the point where they reportedly got washed away.
With mountainous topography and large canals that are infested with refuse and dangerous objects, water channels in Ibadan look scary and nauseating. Whenever rains pour in torrents, it becomes dangerous as the channels are clogged and flooding wreaks havoc.
From Olomi to Apete, Ijokodo to Eleyele, Ogunpa to Academy, the menace of flooding made worse by poor drainage channels continue to grow worse as efforts put in place to ameliorate the situation are not commensurate.
Oladele Teniola, one of the residents who were affected by flooding, lamented that while the state government was building some bridges and drainages in Ibadan, several other communities were left untouched.
“From Olomi to Apete, Ijokodo to Eleyele, Ogunpa to Academy, the menace of flooding made worse by poor drainage channels continue to grow worse as efforts put in place to ameliorate the situation are not commensurate”
According to her, mere lip service was paid to the expansion of canals and this affected the inhabitants as rain waters usually flooded houses whenever there were heavy rains.
Teniola said, “We live on the outskirts of Ologuneru as if our area is not part of Ibadan. The canals are not expanded to allow a large body of water to flow freely whenever it rains. This creates fear in us because we have nightmares about possible flooding. We appeal to the state government to take count of areas that are prone to flooding and make conscious efforts to address the problem during the dry season before the advent of rainfall.”
Bashir Bejide, a resident of Ijokodo area of Ibadan recalled what he described as a depressing experience of 2011, saying it was a big disaster that cost several lives and properties.
“This should always serve as a lesson for us because water, as they say, would always find its way. One cannot keep the water from flowing but most of the channels are blocked. We cannot live perpetually in fear.
“Government has a huge responsibility in terms of flood control and those in positions of authority should not pretend as if it is a non-issue. We are hearing of ecological funds running into billions of naira but only a little could be shown for it. This is sad and it portends insensitivity on the part of our government. We pray that they should be proactive in order to save our lives from avoidable disasters.”
Alimotu Omowonuola, who lives in the Eleyele area of Ibadan, attributed the cause of flooding in the community to the overflowing Eleyele dam. According to her, each time there was heavy rainfall two or three consecutive times, bridges, houses and farm lands are usually flooded with flood water.
She said, “The Eleyele dam constitutes more problems for the people than it provides succour. Whereas we no longer get pipe borne water from the dam, it always overflows during the rainy season, mostly between June and end of September during which havocs are wreaked, properties are lost as well as human lives. If drinkable water was made available and regularly too, the dam would not overflow with water and disaster that we experience annually would not be there.
“We are seizing this opportunity to appeal to the state and local governments to be alive to their responsibilities for the sake of the people which they govern.”
Checks by The Point show that the problem of flooding is not limited to Ibadan, the Oyo State capital and the adjoining communities alone.
Recently, the public was inundated with reports that the only bridge linking Eruwa with Lanlate town had collapsed thereby cutting the people of Ibarapa East Local Government Area off from the rest of the state.
While counting the economic losses as a result of this, one of the residents of the area, Adejumo Ogundele, urged the state government to urgently fix the bridge.
Ogundele said, “We saw the collapsed bridge this morning due to heavy rainfall. The bridge had been in bad condition since. We hope that the state government will fix it as soon as possible, because a journey of a few minutes will now take hours if we use adjoining roads.”
Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Adebo Ogundoyin, has directed the officials of the state government to inspect the Eruwa/Lanlate bridge in a bid to ameliorate the biting effects of the disaster.
Ogundoyin, who is an indigene of Eruwa town, said that he directed the Commissioner for Works and Transport and his counterpart in the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters to immediately inspect the bridge that was washed away by flood in the week.
He urged the officials to take urgent action on how to solve the problem faced by the people of the area, noting that “Nature was at work in my constituency. We are, however, thankful to God that it happened in the early hours of Tuesday and no life was lost.
“I approached the Commissioners for Works and Transport, Prof. Dawud Sangodoyin and that of Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters, Chief Bayo Lawal, and directed them to proceed on an inspection tour of the damaged bridge with a view to taking urgent action on it.
“The damage had, no doubt, negatively affected the movement of our people in the affected towns. This has even affected our students who are writing their NECO and WAEC examinations as it is now virtually impossible to cross the stream.”
During the inspection of some of the ongoing road and bridge projects, Governor Seyi Makinde said that the Federal Government, the Oyo State Government and the Ibadan Urban Flood Management Project would, within a week, align the differences that stalled the completion of Onipepeye Bridge Project and other culverts along the Iwo Road axis of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
The governor, who inspected the ongoing construction at the Onipepeye end of the Expressway, alongside officials of the Federal Ministry of Works and IUMFP, said that Oyo State was ready to resolve the bottleneck stalling the completion of the road.
Citing the constraints that slowed down road constructions and flood channelizations, he said, “The Federal Government says it will complete the expressway up to Ojoo by the end of the year, that looks aggressive but this state will not be the stumbling block.
“If they want to finish this up to Ojoo, say before the end of the year, I think it is aggressive. I don’t want Oyo State to be the stumbling block. Whatever you are saying right now is behind us. Now, I need a solution and we must make a decision, and by Friday (next week), I would like to have feedback.
“We have the Oyo State government involved, the IUFMP and also the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway being fixed by the Federal Government. We saw that there is a misalignment among the three parties. The people should expect that we will mount pressure on the contractors to ensure that they deliver on what they promised to do.”
