The Osun State government has prevented a possible major disaster at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife. A few days of heavy rainfall would have overwhelmed the narrow drainage channel at the institution, swept off its junior staff quarters and cut off the teaching hospital. Lives would probably have been lost. Many would have been left without shelter. And its teaching hospital would certainly have been stretched to the limits, trying to keep its personnel and patients from danger.

Thankfully, the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has averted the disaster. How? It extended the dredging of water channels, which started about three months ago across the state, to the institution.

Hon. Bola Ilori, Special Adviser to the Governor on Environment, and coordinator of the state government agency, O’Clean, saddled with keeping the state clean and safe, was at the institution to see the dredging start in earnest.

Though Obafemi Awolowo University is a federal institution, Hon. Ilori said Governor Rauf Aregbesola speedily responded to the call from the university to save it from the danger of flooding. He said the governor’s concern is to ensure that all water channels in the state are wide enough to allow passage of water during heavy rainfall.

The vice chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo and the the Chief Medical Director of the university teaching hospital, Prof. Tale Omole, and Prof. Oresanya Adejuyigbe, respectively, who witnessed the commencement of dredging of the channels, were full of praises to Governor Aregbesola for coming to the rescue of the university promptly.

Prof. Omole, who expressed profound gratitude to the Osun State governor for setting aside bureaucracy associated with the civil service to avert the “unimaginable danger hanging on the university,” said OAU would not have been able to afford the cost of dredging put at N100 million.

Prof. Adejuyigbe said: “Aregbesola’s action is worthy of praises and emulation for not looking aside and said he could not commit the state resources to the federal institutions. He knew and believed that impending disaster had to be averted and he stood up and did what was right and quite at the right time. Possibly, we could not have been able to afford as much as N100 million to widen up the water channels by ourselves but he has taken off some worries off the university and the teaching hospital. How can we can we quantify the relief his intervention had brought us? Is it the psychological or emotional trauma of likely effects of the damage facing the university community that we should mention or many other negative possibilities. We can’t thank Aregbesola enough. He had demonstrated a good leadership quality.”

However, investigation revealed that the dredging of many water channels from Osogbo, Ilesa and many other parts of the state and which earlier stopped at Ile-Ife had exposed the Obafemi Awolowo University to great danger of possible future flooding. The last week excessive and heavy downpour had shown that the university and its teaching hospital is at a great risk if nothing was done to widen the old narrow water channels passing through the university to its water dam. Effect of the last week rain was bold on the community as the base of the only bridge linking the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex and the university was washed away, leaving some cracks on the surface of the bridge.

The governor’s Special Adviser on Environment, Hon. Bola Ilori, said the dredging would help the university community live above fear of flooding for more than 50 years because the channel was made 1.5 meters in depth and 6 meters in width like the standard used for all water channels across the state.

Appealing to the Federal Government to collaborate with the state government in ensuring that environment is made safe in Osun State, the Special Adviser urged the university to maintain proper waste management in order to keep water channels free of garbage.

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/newsextra/21569-osun-averts-flood-disaster-at-varsity.html