Ibadan residents lament as floods wash away N8m road repairs

Residents of several communities in Ibadan have raised the alarm over the destruction of their access road and bridge by recurring floods, saying an ₦8 million repair carried out in September was washed away by subsequent rainfall.

The residents, who said they had spent at least ₦22 million on repeated repairs, warned that the deteriorating infrastructure was disrupting movement, threatening properties and making life increasingly difficult for workers and other commuters.

The Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Oyo State Council, Odesanya Eji Oloye Martins, who also resides in the area, said the road had remained impassable for days, leaving residents with limited access to neighbouring communities.

“As you can see, the passage has been obstructed for days now, and this will not be the first time,” Martins said.

He added that the recurring destruction had exposed the inability of residents to maintain the road and bridge without government support.

“A lot of efforts have been made earlier on, which have gulped millions of naira. The last one gulped about ₦8 million, and whenever we have an experience of heavy rain, it wipes up everything,” he said.

Martins described the road as a critical link connecting the Eleyele, Nihort and Apata axis, noting that motorists travelling from Eleyele towards Apata, Wire and Cable and surrounding areas often used it as a shorter alternative to other routes.

He estimated that the damaged infrastructure affected about eight communities and close to two million residents, stressing that the scale of the problem required urgent government intervention.

“This is a society where we are from Eleyele, Eleyele to Nihort axis, linked with Apata. This is the sole road that links this particular areas,” he said.

The NLC chairman recalled that he had previously led residents to the Ministry of Works at the state Secretariat to seek assistance, but the community was still waiting for a lasting solution.

He appealed to Governor Seyi Makinde, Senator Sharafadeen Alli and the lawmaker representing the constituency, Engineer Remi Oseni, to intervene.

“These are your people. We can’t neglect them in time like this,” he said.

Martins also expressed concern that government assistance had been inadequate, noting that the only intervention he was aware of from the local government was ₦300,000.

“The only time the local government came around, the chairman gave the community ₦300,000. I wouldn’t know what that is meant for on an issue like this,” he said.

The residents said the affected areas included Wire and Cable, Amugbekun, Abule Owo, Ita Faaji, Orisunmibare, Ajoke, Olohan, Fenwa, Okuta Dudu, Agbeni, Opopin, Papapa, Aba Ilori, Aba Omo, Owode Teachers’ Quarters, Adukanle, Agbofieti, UI Quarters, Ajipeala, Ologolo and All Saints, among others.

The Chairman of the Liberty Garden Residents Association, Evangelist Dawodu Sunday, said the road had deteriorated significantly because of heavy traffic and inadequate drainage.

He disclosed that residents had contributed about ₦5 million for an initial repair, another ₦5 million-plus for subsequent work and approximately ₦2 million for a more recent intervention.

“When we first started doing palliative work here, we contributed about five million naira. When it deteriorated further, we contributed again, adding another five point something million. The last one we did recently was around two million naira before the road got completely bad again,” Dawodu said.

He expressed disappointment over what he described as inadequate government assistance.

“Imagine, just ₦200,000 from the Oyo State Government, because we fall under Oyo State, when we called upon Oyo State, that’s what we got,” he said.

Another community leader, Pastor Yemi Olukanni, said residents had made repeated attempts to repair the bridge, but each intervention was undermined by flooding.

“The one we did, this is just last month, September, and this one cost well over ₦8 million. Now the rain that fell on Monday has cleared everything. That is the end of 8 million naira, and who are we, where are we, nobody to assist us,” he said.

Olukanni estimated that the communities had spent not less than ₦22 million on the repairs and called for a government-led assessment and reconstruction.

“Let them come and survey this place and give us a better bridge that can serve the community,” he said.

The Chairman of Teachers’ Quarters, Noah Johnson, said the road was particularly important to workers commuting to the University of Ibadan, Challenge and other parts of the city.

“We see that this road and bridge are very important to us because whenever it is time to go, all our people working at UI or Challenge take this route, and they don’t have another way,” he said.

Deaconess Aliu Eunice Temidayo, of Olorun Busi Community, Agbofieti Teachers’ Quarters, said the road also served as a shortcut for people travelling from Omi, Wire and Cable and neighbouring areas towards Mokola and the University of Ibadan.

“This place serves as a shortcut for us. We need help from the government so they don’t abandon us here and assume we live in the bush. We do live in the bush, people are here, many workers are here; please, for God’s sake, we need their help,” she said.

Meanwhile, resident Odesanya Ajayi called for a comprehensive drainage project, warning that rebuilding the bridge alone would not solve the problem.

He said floodwater from several adjoining communities converged in the area, overwhelming the existing culvert and destroying repairs.

“In fact, we just fixed this area not quite long, and after we did it, I think three weeks after, we still have erosion that actually destroyed what we have done,” Ajayi said.

He urged the Oyo State Ministry of Environment to inspect the area and consider dredging and widening the drainage channels, constructing additional culverts and establishing a proper water corridor from Alafara towards Baokusoro and the drainage route leading to Odo Ona.

“We can only do a little bit of palliative, we need government intervention to come over and fix most of this things for us,” he said.

The residents appealed to the state government and elected representatives to provide a permanent engineering solution, warning that continued reliance on community-funded repairs would leave the road vulnerable to further destruction whenever heavy rainfall occurred.