The managing director of Ogun Osun River Basin Development Authority (OORBDA), Engr Deji Ashiru, has called on residents and other property owners in the Isheri Olofin Community to refrain from attributing the annual perennial flooding ravaging their community to water releases from the Oyan Dam.
Ashiru specifically admonished the affected residents of the flood-ravaging Isheri Olofin Community to channel their efforts toward advocating for the construction of another dam downstream of the Oyan Dam as a permanent solution to ease the challenges of flooding in the area rather than seeing the Dam as responsible for their annual travail.
OORBDA’s chief executive officer, Ashiru, stated this while addressing stakeholders at a town hall meeting with property owners at the Isheri Olofin community of Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State.
With specific reference to the agitations and public protests carried out by the affected residents who converged under the Lagos Ogun River Basin Communities Association, Ashiru explained that Oyan Dams had been a blessing to their community rather than the lousy age attributed to the dam.
Ashiru stressed that the entire Isheri communities would have been swept away had Oyan Dam not been gated to accommodate water inflow from its upstream, which included the Portonovo in the Republic of Benin, among other trans-border rivers that throw water into the Oyan and Ogun Rivers.
He explained that 52 other un-gated rivers downstream of the Oyan Dam have been responsible for pouring their contents into the Ogun River, thereby causing the annual flooding incidents being recorded in the community.
Dwelling on the permanent solution to averting flooding in the community, Ashiru disclosed that the authority has initiated a process to make the federal government construct another Dam downstream of the Oyan Dam, which will serve as a reservoir for water inflows from the 52 other ungated rivers.
He explained that his recommendation and assessment of the Ecological Fund for the same purpose had already received the President’s attention.
Responding, the Chairman of the association, Mr Olarewaju Falade, appreciated the efforts being made by the management to control flooding, which has displaced some of them from their homes.
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