Thirty-two years after dredging activities had been halted in Oyo State, the state government has commenced the dredging of 43 rivers and streams across the 33 local government areas of the state.
The state Commissioner for Environment and Habitat, Alhaji Wasiu Dauda, who disclosed this on Tuesday while briefing newsmen after an inspection tour of some dredging sites in Ibadan metropolis, said the exercise was to prevent the reoccurrence of the August 26, 2011 flood in the state.
It would be recalled that aside the August 26, 2011 Ibadan flood disaster, the ancient city had earlier witnessed a monumental flood disaster in 1980, which claimed several lives and property.
No dredging had, however, been carried out by any administration on the rivers and streams.
The commissioner, while expressing government’s determination to guide against another flood disaster in the state during the raining season, said that the dredging exercise, which began some weeks ago, would be completed soon.
“The present administration has deemed it fit to expand the streams as they could no longer contain the volume of water flowing through them. This is to prevent another flood disaster in the state,” Dauda said.
He said that government had reduced the number of structures to be demolished to about 56 instead of the over 1,000 structures earlier marked for demolition.
The inspection tour took the commissioner and his team to Upper Ogunpa River along Awolowo Junction, Farayola Stream, Bodija and Alaro Stream at Ijokodo, all in Ibadan.
In his remarks, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Information and Orientation, Alhaji Gbolagade Busari, said this was the first time that any administration would dredge rivers and streams after the 1980 flood disaster.
Busari appealed to the people of the state to cooperate with the state government in its efforts at preventing flood disaster by desisting from indiscriminate dumping of refuse into rivers and streams.
“The expectation of government from the people of the state is that they should desist from dumping of refuse on waterways, erection of structures on water channels and observance of government standard distance of 45-50 metres from river banks,” Busari said.