The chairman of the Oyo State Task Force on Flood Prevention and Management, Dr Bolanle Wahab, has disclosed that a total of 2,105 buildings were washed away by the flood disaster which ravaged the city of Ibadan on August 26, 2011.He also said that a total sum of N4.31 billion would be required by the state government to construct 25 bridges and culverts in all the affected areas across all the 11 local government areas of the state capital.The task force was constituted by Governor Abiola Ajimobi on September 9, 2011, following the havoc wreaked by the flood occasioned by the over seven hours of torrential rain which caught the residents of Ibadan napping.Wahab, while presenting the report of his task force to the governor at the executive council chambers of the Governor's Office on Tuesday, described the flood as most disastrous, with 187.5 mm, the highest in the city since 1951.The task force chairman, who disclosed that properties worth over N100 billion were damaged, said that the flood resulted in loss of several lives, community disruptions and immobilisation, social dislocation, grief, fear, conflict as well as damage to urban infrastructure.He blamed the disaster on the flagrant disregard for urban and regional planning law, as well as the lack of master plan for the city of Ibadan.Wahab also expressed worries over the rate at which residents of the state capital dump refuse and solid wastes in gutters, rivers and streams, build shops along flood plains, stressing that the activities of land speculators did not help matters.Governor Ajimobi, while receiving the report, decried the penchant for disregard for urban and regional planning law, particularly by the residents of Ibadan, which he said aided the flood disaster.The governor, who vowed that all the buildings and structures along flood plains would be removed, immediately announced the setting up of an inter-ministerial committee comprising commissioners and special advisers in the Ministries of Environment, Urban and Regional Planning, Water Resources, Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and, Works and Transport.He said that the committee would work in collaboration with OSEMAT to determine the cost implication of all the projects to be executed in the areas of flood prevention and management.Senator Ajimobi, who admitted that huge funds would be required by the state government to address the environmental problems bedeviling the city of Ibadan , said that he would contact some development partners to come to the aid of the state.
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