Over 70 residents were rendered homeless in Ibadan as heavy downpour caused floods that swept through the city at the weekend.
Although no lives were lost in areas visited by LEADERSHIP, properties worth millions of naira were however destroyed as a result of the heavy rain.
The Apete bridge which caved in as an aftermath of August 26, 2011 flood in the Oyo state capital was also affected by the weekend’s rain. It made human and vehicular movement extremely difficult on Sunday morning as many had to seek alternative routes to their places of worship.
In a related development, the Oyo State government has said that but for the proactive measures it undertook late last year and early in the year in reconstructing nine critically dilapidated bridges and dredging 43 rivers and streams across the state, the flooding that occurred at the weekend in the city of Ibadan, the capital of the state, would have been worse.
The government made this known in a release issued by Special Adviser to the Governor on Media, Dr. Festus Adedayo.
According to the release, government undertook the dredging of the rivers and construction of the bridges so as to prevent the reoccurrence of last August 26 flooding in the state where many people lost their lives and properties.
The release said that upon hearing the distress calls of residents of the affected areas in the early hours of Sunday, government immediately dispatched a team of commissioners, Special Advisers, State Emergency Management Agency officials, as well as the state fire-fight service team to the affected areas, so as to have a first-hand assessment of the flooding.
“We are all living witnesses to the widespread nature of the flood disaster of August 26, 2011. Government went back to the drawing board after that devastating flood and immediately set up a panel to look into the overt and covert causes of the flood, with a view to recommending appropriate solutions. That panel came out with the list of a total of about 2500 houses which it recommended for demolition. But after a critical look by government,? the number was reviewed downwards, with the belief that massive dredging of rivers and streams, as well as construction of bridges across the state, would ameliorate the situation,” the release said.