OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY ARAKUNRIN ROTIMI AKEREDOLU ON THE STATE OF ILAJE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF ONDO STATE.
Your Excellency sir,
I want to quickly appreciate and acknowledge your vision and mission for our dearing Ondo State, particularly Ilaje Local Government by opening the efficient capability of the Land through the Lekki-Epe interstate to Araromi, arranging a remote ocean port, inland port, keeping up harmony and request in the nearby government, in the midst of other great accomplishments of this administration in the land. Let me also commend your Admiration for the Peaceful Environment we are enjoying in Ilaje Constituency & Ondo State at large.
On 10th of August, 2017, I wrote through the House Committee on Environment to The Office of The Hon Commissioner For Environment and Presented The Situation in my Constituency & Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State to the Federal Government Proposed intervention through the Ecological Fund Office (EFO), (Reference to https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=868792819939017&id=230952477056391 for the official letter) Shockingly as I write no productive proceed onward it.
Communities like Awoye,Mese, Odofado,Gbagira,Erunna, Aiyetoro and others prior required earnest intervention due of oil exploration and now flooding has taken over the precious land.
The effect of Oil exploration on these communities is a major challenge hence the IOC need to also be called upon to ensure they take up certain social responsibilities as the effect of OSOPADEC and NDDC are not felt in the mandate area they were created to cater for, subsequently incited this open letter for your caring intervention.
Year in year out projects are repeated in the yearly budget without manifestation, the region is seriously neglected by the Federal and State intervention agencies (NDDC and OSOPADEC) with gross of abandoned projects yet to be revisited amidst them is the Water Project in Aboto,Ugbo - Owoye road in Ilaje Constituency 1 & 2.
As a nation, we have genuinely grieved and we are as yet lamenting the gory death of the Akungba Flood victim in Akoko recently.
As we grieve, I need to submissively say, the yearly flooding in my Constituency as well as most part of Ilaje Local Government and as also witnessed in all the senatorial district of the state is increasing yearly.
This has caused an inevitable displacement of local communities, in particular indigenous communities, from their traditional territories as well as loss of their livelihoods. Fishing being the main occupation of Ilaje especially Ilaje Constituency 1 can no longer be practiced and many are displaced from home due to the flood issue.
The disruption of the natural river hydrology leading to a reduction in the deposition of nutrients downstream of the dam,
series of environmental, societal and economical effect in the area and more, are what our people at Ilaje Local Government Area of the state and the entire Citizens of the State are confronting now.
This triggering and harbingering of rain and flooding is a natural phenomenal that can be likened to the seeing of day and night. When we see day and night in our life as a nation, we are decidedly mindful, that come some time in a year, there will consistently be downpours that may have likelihood of flooding the state and mostly the riverine region of the state. The long and shy of the story is that, raining and flooding are not strange over the span of the year, yet typical. It occurs every year and has become part of us as a nation.
Catastrophic flooding is currently a yearly distraction for our territory and our economy. So as to adequately organize our endeavors and assets, we need all degrees of government to cooperate.
My constituents are depending on our governments to work crosswise over factional lines and meet this issue together.
In this piece of my writing to you, I categorically project rain and flooding of Ondo state, most especially the Ilaje Local Government area of the state, as normal trait that happens yearly and therefore need to be planned for, budgeted for, worked on and reported on yearly basis as the situation has presented itself. The management of the situation throughout the year on daily basis by continuous elaboration of plans and execution, monitoring and evaluation will mitigate the problem and possibly prevent the painful agonies we need to live through perennially as people.
Your Excellency Sir,I therefore, urge you to call on all relevant agencies saddled with responsibilities to come to our aid and move away from structural responses as primary solutions for flood mitigation and adopt more holistic non-structural measures.
Let’s work together and move this issue forward by finding a lasting solution to it. It’s what our constituents expect.
Yours Sincerely,
Hon (Prince) Abayomi Babatunde Akinruntan
• Member Representing Ilaje Constituency 1
• Parliamentary Secretary, ODHA
• Chairman House Committee on OSOPADEC
Post a Comment