By Okey Chris
Awka
Some residents of Awka, the Anambra state capital, are still counting their losses while venting their anger on the state government following the impact of floods from the first year rain in the metropolis.
The downpour which occurred on Tuesday last week, swept away people’s property, including the abandoned water channel construction works along Arthur Eze avenue, Dike Park/Eke Awka axis, and Amenyi/Arroma/Ziks avenue along old Onitsha/Enugu roads.
Speaking to Blueprint, some eyewitnesses and victims, Ebuka Okolo and Nneka Okon, who operate computer business centre and boutiques, respectively, lamented that the flooding damaged multimillion naira worth of goods in their enterprises.
Okolo said: “I was in my computer business centre that morning when the precipitation begun. In less than two minutes, the abandoned water channel project in front of my shop was over flooded. And the rain shifted its attention to shops closer the road including mine. They flooded our shops with different kinds of refuse dump, dirty and obnoxious items.
“At the process, even some of the woods been used for the construction works before the contractors absconded to nowhere, were leveled, demolished and carried away by the flood. You know the work was stopped since December 2016 even though that the government promised us that it would be completed before December.”
Blueprint reports that although the state government had yet to release official information to that effect, Governor Obiano’s SSA on Social Media, Ifeanyi Aniagor, charged people to imbibe culture of clearing the waterways as well as to avoid indiscriminate dumping of refuse, which according to him were reasons behind the disaster.
“While the government endeavours to give us a better society, we have the civic responsibility to keep our surroundings clean and immediately stop dumping of refuse into the gutters. The bad environment we experience today is as a result of our neglects of yesterday,” he said.