Flood Sacks Osun Communities, Man Feared Drown as Aregbesola Visits Victims

By Abdulrofiu Agboola, Osogbo

Residents of some communities in Osogbo, the capital of Osun State were thrown into confusion and agony on Wednesday as flood ravaged the communities, following 20-hour downpour.

Heavy rain had started falling in Osogbo at noon on Tuesday and refused to stop till around 12pm on Wednesday.

The rain brought devastating flood in communities like Testing Ground, Gbonmi/Tanisi, Rasco at Old garage and some many other places.

Properties worth millions of naira were destroyed by the flood. Houses and vehicles were submerged by the flood.

CityMirrorNews learnt that a 60-year-old Elder Ebenezer Olabode was feared drown in the flood, as nobody knew his whereabouts. Sunkanmi’s car was said to have been found in the flood.

Mr Bukola Olayemi, a resident at testing ground area where the incident occurred, attributed the mayhem to the non completion of dredging of streams and rivers being done by the state government.

Olayemi said several houses collapsed and vehicles submerged by the flood.

He called on the state government to take drastic step on the flood matter and continue the dredging of streams and rivers.

According to him, two cars belonging to an agent simply identified as “Ilelabo” were carted away by the flood.

He described the incident as unfortunate, saying it should not have happened at a time the people are facing economic recession which has made life a little bit harder for them.

Mrs Iyabo Ojo, a civil servant who also spoke to CityMirrorNews called on the government to come to the aid of the people in the areas, so as to save them from future occurrence.

Ojo said the state government had done a lot in areas where such cases were reported in the state.

She urged government officials and concerned disaster response agencies in the state to give helping hands to those involved.

Visiting the victims of the flood on Wednesday, Osun state Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola expressed sympathy with those affected in Osogbo.

Aregbesola in a statement by the Director Bureau of Communication and Strategy Mr.
Semiu Okanlawon, was quoted as speaking during his tour of the affected areas.

The Governor said the flood occurrence took the state by surprise judging by the heavy
investments of his administration on flood prevention since 2011.

“Considering our efforts in the past at ensuring cleared waterways, we never expected this. Our government deeply regrets the flooding that has affected our people,” Aregbesola told residents
who came to listen to his words of comfort at the scene.

Since 2011, the government had been embarking on massive dredging of waterways in all parts of
state in order to stave off such disasters.

After the tour which took him to all the areas affected Aregbesola said, “I have moved round to commiserate with the victims whose properties were affected by this disaster.

“We have been quite committed to ensuring absence of this calamity since the advent of our
administration as we have been regularly dredging the waterways on annual basis and as
a matter of fact we are still very much indebted to those who normally work with us to ensure
cleaning of our waterways.”

The governor attributed the development to what he called the negative impact of people’s
activities on the environment adding that a huge accumulation of wastes remains a major
invitation to flood.

It would be recalled that Osun was among the 14 states announced by the Nigeria Hydrological Service Agency to experience flood incident and urged residents living in the flood-prone areas of the states to relocate.

Among the states which were said to experience the flood according to the agency apart from Osun are Rivers, Calabar, Benue, Sokoto, Imo, Cross River, Yobe, Ogun, Kaduna and Yola