Communities living along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway have blamed the Ogun Oshun River Basin Development Authority (OORBDA) for its poor handling of the Oyan Dam, whose waters continue to over-run their homes with attendant loss of lives and property just as the River Basin Authority gave assurance that efforts are on the way to bring succour to the people.
Lamenting their ordeal at a briefing recently in Lagos, the Chairman of Riverview Estate Residents and Stakeholders Association, Abayomi Akinde, and Chairman of Isheri Estate Community, Abiola Abioye, said if the dam has been well regulated, about 90 percent of the flooding affecting the communities would have been solved.
Explaining the root cause of the flood, Akinde said: “OORBDA has ignored the recommendation of a stakeholders’ summit, organised by the Lagos State government in 2017.”
Giving details of the recommendation, he said: “The communiqué issued at the conclusion of the two-day stakeholders’ summit stated, among other things, that the poorly regulated release of water from the Oyan dam by the OORBDA is a major causative factor in the perennial Ogun river flooding suffered by communities in Lagos State. And that OORBDA should strive to exploit the best practice in the monitoring of Oyan Dam to stem the tide of flooding in the affected communities as enjoyed in the 1990s.”
Abioye, on his part, said: “If the dam is well controlled, 90 percent of the problem affecting us would have been solved. What is paramount for us is that we don’t want flooding anymore.”
When contacted, OORBDA Managing Director, Olufemi Odumosu, said: “If there has been a master drainage plan, long stretch of drainage canal or channelization of water all the way to the lagoon before the construction of the estate, all the excess water from the dam or rainfall would have been channelised, and it would have allowed the residential areas to be flood-free.”
THISDAY