Residents of Oke-Afa community, in the Magboro area of Ogun state have condemned government negligence, after being forced to vacate their homes due to terrible flooding.
A mother of three shared her experience with The Punch on how she and her family had to move out of their house after a snake came in with the flood.
She said, “We were standing on the bed in the children’s room because of the flood when my son screamed out in fear. I asked what the problem was, but he was too shocked to answer; he pointed at a corner of the room and there I saw a big, black snake. My husband was not around, so it was our neighbors who entered the water and killed the snake. It was that day I packed a few things and went to my sister’s place.”
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Residents have lamented bitterly and threatened not to vote again as campaign promises to fix the problem were never remembered upon assumption of office.
The assistant Secretary-general of the community development commute, Mr. Blessing spoke on behalf of the chairman of Oke- Afa community saying that all efforts to involve the government in proffering solution to the fooling has been fruitless.
He also talked about how the community spends some huge amount of money to reduce the flooding in any possible way.
“We’ve been trying to involve government before now, even the previous administration of Senator Ibikunle Amosun. I remember then that we wrote to him and the Ministry of Environment. When the state finally released a swamp boogie, the community was responsible for conveying it down; we paid N500,000 and we spent N75,000 daily to fuel it and paid the operator. We did that for 21 days after which the flooding abated. That was around 2017.
But the situation kept recurring. When the construction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway started, we discovered that the water from the highway was channeled this way, which increased our challenge.
In 2019, we did a letter to the current governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, and we reminded him of his campaign promises to fix the issue. We handed a letter directly to him during his campaign and immediately after the campaign when we had this issue, we wrote to him and in a subtle way reminded him of his promises, but nothing was done.
We made efforts to bring a swamp boogie through the help of a member of the House of Assembly representing Obafemi Owode Local Government Area, Kayode Damilola Soneye. He helped in bringing the machine and we paid again. We did it and there was respite and then we continued to follow up with the Federal Ministry of Works. They came, did three curvet, but they stopped due to the directive of the Minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola, that all works should be suspended and they should face the expressway project. Since 2020, nothing has been done.”
The Vice Chairman of Ilupeju Estate, Prince MA Obasi, also added that he spent a lot on palliative to help members of his community, lamenting that government had done nothing to address the situation.
