A man identified as Glory Jato, has been swept away by flood at Bethel Estate, Oba-Ile in Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State.
Jato was said to be returning from work when the incident occurred.
He was said to have been swept away by flood occasioned by Friday’s downpour, which lasted several hours.
Assistant Secretary of the Landlord Association of Bethel Estate, Oba-Ile, Pastor Gbenga Ojuloge, who confirmed the incident, called on the Ondo State government to help dredge the water canal in the area to prevent future occurrence.
Ojuloge said flooding in the area had turned a nightmare for residents of the estate.
“We are using this opportunity to draw attention of both the federal and state governments and the local government to what is actually going on here in our community.
“This is the main access road to the community and flood has already taken what we have used our years of our lives to construct.
“Everything you can see on the bridge is actually the effort of the landlords of the community, we discovered that the flood will just come and push everything away, so we are calling on the government to come to our aid.
“On Friday we lost a soul here and that is why we are calling and we want everyone to know that this is the main access to all the flood coming from Ijapo, Alagbaka, oja oba, so immediately there is rain, no access to our roads again,” he said.
Another landlord, Mr. Olusola Osupala, said the community had written several letters to intervention agencies to help save the situation, but to no avail.
“Over the years, we have been suffering flood in this community and all what you can see in this estate is community effort up to our light, we contributed, we bought transformer, season out of season.
“Infact, couple of days ago, someone died on this bridge because of flood, he was drowned, we don’t have access to the bridge, we don’t have access to our home once it rained. We can no longer continue like this, we need government to dredge this river for us.
“This road is a major road to all the community and we appeal to the state government to come to our rescue, we do lose lives during the raining season.
“We have a situation that we do lose people when it rains, on Friday, we lost a young married man to this flood, which is so painful so we appeal to the state government we appeal to Akeredolu to come to our rescue,” she said.
(The Nation)
