Ola Ajayi, Ibadan

The flood disaster that led to the death of scores of people in Ibadan, Oyo State capital,  was similar to the one popularly called “Omiyale” in 1980. It was indeed a day of rage. Heaven was angry.

When the rain started, it came in such a gentle manner that did not give the residents an inkling that danger was looming. Then it became heavy  for more than two hours.

Though, it was raining cat and mouse, since there was a fence round the residence of  Dr. Olakunle Benjamin Akinyele,  a medical doctor at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, he thought all he needed to do was to part with his fellow Christian brothers to join his children at home. It was never in his slightest imagination that he would not live in his newly-built house where he was planning to relocate at the end of the year.

Having performed his duty as a church worker at the Word Communication Ministry, Onireke, Ibadan on the  fateful day, he felt  that with the intensity of the rain, it would be unsafe to leave his children alone at home. His wife, a nurse, was said to have gone to  work.

But by the time he got home, the  rain was falling in torrents  and he had to rush into their flat to join the children unaware of the rising water level at the back of the  fence. Hardly had he got inside than the flood pulled down the fence  and water gushed in uncontrollably.  In  an  effort to save their three children, he got trapped in the flat. That was how  he and the three children struggled to the point of death.

The water level rose and covered the ground floor  at the house  number 141, Sango-Eleyele Road. When  neighbours trooped out after the rain had subsided, they  didn’t know  that  the doctor  and his three children were dead. It was when the wife arrived that she raised the alarm. But it was  too late. Her loving husband and three children had  surrendered to the cold hands of death. When Sunday Vanguard  visited  the house, the property of the family  littered the entrance. The deceased doctor’s  car and another one were hanging  on the fence.

All the preparation the family was  making to pack into their new house was merely  day-dreaming.

The reality of  Akinyele’s  death perhaps didn’t  dawn on  many  neighbours until they saw the posters announcing the death of the man and his three children. A little girl in the next house could not believe her eyes. She sobbed profusely. Her cry soon became contagious and some of  the neighbors including the landlady of the house wept as if the news of the  death had just broken.

Narrating how the sad event happened, a former chief security officer to Senator Rashidi Ladoja, Chief Bola Alphonso, said, “The rain started around 4.30p.m., but it became  torrential around 6.30. The water which had accumulated at the back of the fence suddenly pulled down the fence and submerged the house. When we came out, we  didn’t know they had been trapped in their flat until the wife came. We tried to rescue a boy and a girl but Dr. Akinyele and the three children could not make it. The flood was more than that of Ogunpa in 1980. I had a vantage position to actually see what happened”.

His Christian brother who the deceased doctor  left in the church  hours  to his death, Bro. Yomi Francis, thought it was a mistaken identity when they told him that Akinyele’s  house was submerged. He brought the poster announcing the burial arrangement when Sunday Vanguard pleaded with him to speak on the tragedy.

He betrayed his manly nature as he broke into tears after  uttering  few words. “What would I say. He is gone with  his three children. He was such a caring brother with a high sense of humility. He was a worker in the church. He told me that they were going to mark the birthday of one of their children on Saturday.

He had just finished painting his new house preparing to pack there in December. We met shortly before the sad event happened. He told me he was going home to see their children. Someone called me some hours later and said their house had been submerged. I asked the person what this meant. Later I heard that he and the children could not make it. We just came back from where we buried the children. What a sad event!”

The landlady too could not hide her feelings. She was trying to call the attention of the  delegation  of the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Samuel Odulana, to the ugly incident that befell his tenants.

Sunday Vanguard also saw the mechanic of the deceased who had just pulled out the Audi car of the doctor from the mud where the flood swept it. He was cleaning the car but declined initially to talk because of the grief.

He described the doctor as a gentle man who could not hurt a fly. He wondered why such a man could die just like that.

The delegation  of the Olubadan, led by High Chief Omowale Kuye, Otun Olubadan, said the disaster posed a lot of concern to the monarch.

The wife of the deceased was said to be gradually coming back to life after the shock.
The disaster struck when Governor Abiola Ajimobi was away to Saudi Arabia  on  lesser hajj. But he directed that two camps be put in place and relief materials be given to displaced persons at Apete and Odo Ona areas of the city.

Up till now, students of the Polytechnic Ibadan  who reside in Apete cannot attend lectures because they have been cut off by the bridge that caved in as a result of the flood. The students were seen making a make-shift pedestrian bridge. The canoe carrying  them  was  insufficient for hundreds of  the students and people living there.

Though the state government  has promised through the deputy governor, Chief Moses Alake, that all the necessary reliefs would be provided, residents of the city are calling on government to be proactive.

The Olubadan  has, in the meantime, called on the Federal Government to declare Ibadan a disaster area, adding that  it  should not leave the state government alone to bear the burden. Already, the National Emergency Management Agency has arrived the state.