A middle-aged man, simply identified as Glory, on Friday, lost his life at Bethel Estate, a community in Oba-Ile, Akure, as flood continued to ravage more communities in the state capital.
According to the landlords association, the man, who was said to be a Federal Government worker, was coming from work when he was swept away by flood on Friday.
The Assistant Secretary of Landlord Association of Bethel Estate, Oba-Ile, Pastor Gbenga Ojuloge, confirmed the incident while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Akure.
Ojuloge said that the community needed government’s intervention to help dredge the waterways to prevent future occurrence.
NAN reports that several communities suffered from severe flooding on Saturday, as many access roads were cut off due to the rainfall that started on Friday and lasted more than 24 hours.
Ojuloge said that the waterway had turned into death trap, claiming lives every year.
He said that all the efforts made by the community to ensure that the flood was kept at bay every year had not yielded any result.
“We are using this opportunity to draw the attention of governments at all levels to what is going on in our community.
“This is the main access road to the community but the flood is already taking what we have used our sweats to construct.
“Everything you can see on the bridge was done by the landlords in the community, but we discover that the flood will just come and push everything away. So we are calling on government to come to our aid.
“On Friday, we lost a person here. This is because all the waters coming from Ijapo, Alagbaka and Oja-Oba are passing through here. So immediately it rains, there is no access to our community again,” he said.
Also speaking, one of the landlords, Mr Olusola Osupala, said once it rained, access to the estate was always cut off.
Osupala said that the community had written to several intervention agencies to help save the situation, but all to no avail.
Another landlady in the community, Mrs Oluwtosin Ibitoye, said that the death of the young man was painful, adding that she was part of the rescue party to save his life.
Ibitoye said once it rains, the road would be cut off, while residents would not be able to go in and out of the work again.
Source: News Agency of Nigeria