Date: 2020-11-10

? TUNDE OYEKOLA writes on the failure of the government to attend to a collapsed drainage system in the Oke-Erin area of Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, which is posing a serious threat to the lives and property of the residents An abandoned drainage, which has collapsed and turned into a gully in the Oko-Erin area of the Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara State, has become a threat to lives and the property of the people living around the area.

The drainage, which runs from the back of the Sawmill motor park and terminates on Mustapha Sedan Street, has cut off the residents from other areas of the state capital.

Though it links the Sawmill area to the newly-reconstructed Oko-Erin Bridge, it is impassable as a result of its non-completion by the government, which started the construction of the drainage and rehabilitation of the road about 10 years ago during the regime of Dr Bukola Saraki as the governor of the state.

The bridge collapsed in June this year as a result of torrential rainfall and claimed the life of a businessman, Mr Okechukwu Nwagbo, and two of his apprentices when their car fell into the flood when they were returning home after the day's work.

Residents told our correspondent that though the drainage, which has already become a gully, had yet to claim human lives, many domestic animals had fallen into the ditch and died, while some motorcyclists had been rescued by the people living around the area.

The drainage is also constituting a threat to the buildings located on both sides of the gully, which the residents say is expanding on a daily basis.

Residents of the ever-busy area also said that they now find it difficult to access their residences due to the collapsed drainage.

Some residents of the community attributed the damage to flood occasioned by heavy rainfall and a water source from a substandard drainage system in the area.

One of the landlords in the area, Mallam lbrahim Oloyin, who noted that he moved to the area about 17 years ago, said that there was no gully there when he completed his house. Oloyin, a petrol tanker driver with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, said the problem started 10 years ago when the government constructed the drainage, adding, "When the contractor terminated the drainage halfway, we queried him but he said that that was the point the government earmarked for him to stop the drainage. We then sent a delegation to the government, but they told us that they were coming to complete it; since then, we have not seen them.

"Since then, the drainage has continued to expand. An Igbo man, whose house was under construction, after trying to extend the drainage, stopped the construction of his building when the erosion became a threat.

''Three weeks ago, an okada rider, who was conveying a passenger fell into the ditch in the night; we had to rescue him from the ditch that night, but his motorcycle was recovered the following day from the ditch, while a truck conveying charcoal to the area was stopped from falling into the gully by a tree a few months ago."

Oloyin lamented that some shop owners had moved away from the area when they could not access their shops, while many affected car owners now beg to park their vehicles in neighbouring houses close to their residences.

"We have taken our complaints to the government; we have submitted a letter to the Ministry of Works and we wrote another letter to the governor, Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq about our plight on this drainage, but up till now, the government has not replied us; we are appealing to the governor to see to our plight by helping us to repair the drainage; we are begging him to assist us," Oloyin stated.

Mrs Afusat Adaara, a businesswoman, said her husband, who had been leaving in the area for the past 17 years, could no longer bring his car home, adding that he sought permission from members of the commercial drivers' body operating at the Sawmill motor park to park his car overnight in the garage. Afusat lamented that the bad state of the bridge had brought untold hardship on the people.

She said several motorcycles and domestic animals had sunk into the drainage and several residents had been sacked from their homes.

Afusat, who said the situation could worsen if nothing urgent was done to address it, noted that the situation had left many families in the area devastated.

A septuagenarian, Hajia Ebun Isiaka, who said she moved from Lagos to settle in Ilorin about eight years ago to take care of her sick husband, noted that the gully caused by the uncompleted drainage had a devastating effect on the 40-year-old two-storey building that she depended on for feeding.

Ebun, who claimed to be about 77 years old and the landlady of the two-storey building close to the collapsed drainage, lamented that the drainage had caused untold hardship to her family, adding that erosion had washed away the well, which used to be the only source of potable water for several people in the area.

She said, "I followed my husband from Lagos to Ilorin to take proper care of him eight years ago when he took ill. We built this house about 40 years ago. When we came, we let out parts of the building to tenants before my husband's death, but the tenants started to pack out because this place is no longer accessible and the worst happened about three weeks ago when the well, which is our only source of water supply, was swept away by flood."

Ebun appealed to the state government to come to the aid of the residents to avoid a possible outbreak of cholera.

Speaking in a similar vein, other residents of the area, Hajia Rashidat Oludare and Mr Toibu Sulaiman, said they now live in perpetual fear of their houses being washed away.

They both remarked that the damaged portion of the road had continued to expand daily with nothing being done to ease the suffering of the residents, whose means of livelihood had been affected.

The residents appealed to the governor to come to their aid to prevent complete loss of their residences and means of livelihood.

Efforts to get the reaction of the state Commissioner for Works, Mr Rotimi Illyasu, on the failed drainage proved abortive as calls put across to his two telephone lines were not picked, while text messages sent to the lines were not replied.

However, the Chairman, Kwara State Road Maintenance Agency, Alhaji Rafiu Bolakale-Oloje, described the situation as an ecological problem, which was outside the purview of the interventionist agency.

He told our correspondent, "When I got information that there was a collapsed drainage in the area, I sent an engineer to go and look at it, but the report he gave me was that it was an ecological problem and this is not within our jurisdiction.

"He, however, said that we should contact the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, whose duty is to solve such ecological issues."

Bolakale-Oloje said the agency was collaborating with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to reconstruct the bridge and the drainage system.