Aba residents send SOS to Gov. Ikpeazu over ravaging flood

By IJENDU IHEAKA

Residents on Ohanku Road, Aba, Abia and its adjoining streets have called on Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu to save them from flooding.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that flooding in the hilly, flood-prone area has increased lately following road construction in the area.

Mr Emmanuel Nwaofo, a resident said property belonging to him and many other residents were damaged by flood on April 23.

He blamed the heightened flooding on “shoddy job’’ being executed by the contactor on the road project.

“The storm water came from the leaking points under the drainage system being constructed by the construction workers who laid the concrete on sand instead of digging deep before laying the concrete base.

“The construction company resumed work on Saturday and patched some of the holes, through which storm water enters our compounds.

“We are calling on Gov. Ikpeazu to come and inspect the work by the construction company and save us from more flooding,’’ Nwaofo said.

Another resident, Monday Ama, observed that while area is on a flood plain, the damage done would not have been of high magnitude if the contractor was executing a good job.

He urged government to send officials to the site to ascertain the quality of job being done.

Ama claimed that a tricycle operator lost his life on April 23, at the construction site because of alleged shoddy work being done by the contractor.

Yet another resident, Deo-Volente Orji lamented the heightened level of flooding which he blamed on the refusal of the contractor to heed “wise’’ counsel of residents on the hilly terrain of the area.

He also claimed that some people had died from flooding which occurs perennially in the area, but which had yet to be addressed by any government in Abia.

Orji urged the state government to treat flooding in the area as a serious matter and to construct drainage systems with 12-feet pipes.

The size of pipes, he explained, was used in the past to tackle flooding in other in a World Bank-assisted project.

Reacting to residents’ submissions, Mr Nnamdi Ujoh, Site Supervisor of the constructing firm, told NAN that the company was already fixing two culverts to channel water out of the area to solve the problem.

He said the problem of Ohanku Road was caused by storm water from adjoining Akoli Road drainage project, a job that had been abandoned by another contractor.

“We have already taken care of flooding in peoples’ homes; you need to understand that before we came, their houses used to be flooded.

“As we are working on the road now, the flood will gradually stop from entering their houses. It will not just stop at once,” Ujoh said. (NAN)