BY MONSUR OLOWOOPEJO

ACTIVITIES in Aiyetoro-Abuletuntun community in Ojokoro Local Council Development Area, LCDA, were halted five-years-ago following a massive flood that sacked the residents.

The worse hit areas are Oluwaseyi and Olaniyi streets; where residents have completely abandoned their homes or go on yearly compulsory vacation, during the rains to allow the floods that usually occupy their community to recede. Since the first remarkable flooding in the community in 2007, activities there have remained at zero level.

A visit to the once busy streets revealed the level of havoc the disaster visited on the community especially the two streets.

File photo: Flood victims

Vanguard gathered that unspecified number of lives have been lost to flood within the five years.

While landlords who couldn’t withstand the stress of nomadic occupancy, have totally abandoned their structures; never returning to check their conditions since they left.

It was learnt that some landlords left their structures to squat with relatives or rent houses elsewhere; starting life afresh as tenants.

Some of the abandoned buildings are getting dilapidated, overgrowing with weeds. Others not taken over by weeds have since turned to full time joints for drug addicts and peddlers.

It was also gathered that a few others however who haven’t completely abandoned their houses acquire chattels to aid their fleeing in times of downpour to avoid the fury of flood.

One of the landlords left in Oluwaseyi street, Mr. Claudius Olaniyi said “Due to the perennial flooding, houses on this street are now deserted.

“Many landlords have abandoned their structures due to the flood which has continuously ravaged the community especially Olaniyi and Oluwaseyi Streets. For instance all the rooms in my house were occupied before the perennial flood. But immediately it started in 2007, all my tenants left and today, 10 out the 12 rooms are empty.”

According to Olaniyi, “I completed my house in 1983 and we never experienced any flood until 2007.

“After the first flood, we embarked on investigation to know the cause and we discovered that water from various communities was channeled into ours. Immediately, we constructed walls around the street but our effort became futile, as the raging flood destroyed the walls. The next year (2008), we dug drainage channels around us but they couldn’t solve the problem.

“After that year, we realised that the problem of flood cannot be solved through communal effort but by government intervention. And we began to write letters to the state Governor, Babatunde Fashola and the council chairman for immediate intervention.”

Mr. Mudashiru Olayinka, another landlord, said; “I cannot afford to erect another building. I built this house when I was still working for the Lagos state Government and today, I am retired.. That was the reason why I cannot abandon my house completely.”