Dear Editor,
The scope and frequency of flooding in Irete is beyond what the tenants alone can tackle. About 99.5 of the landlords are in (different) to the sufferings of their tenants insisting that they are at liberty to relocate to other areas if they find things abnormally difficult.
One of the worst affected spots is the formerCateringSchoolclose to Orogwe. This long stretch of feeder road is at times not fordable by pedestrians because of the knee – level flood water.
It comes all the way from Afor – Irete about two or three kilometres away washing into the low areas on whichCateringSchoolis located. As a result of the flood water which stagnates for months, people now dread visiting their relations or friends who reside at theCateringSchoolarea. Tenants and few landlords have been sacrificing money and labour to make the road passable yet it has continued to deteriorate. The landlords are the architects of the problem. With no master plan for new layouts, they erected buildings anywhere and anyhow blocking the flood water channels. For now poor grading by a road contractor has worsened the situation.
Is there nothing the Owerri West Local Government can do to check the flood water? Is the Council handicapped in enforcing sanity in real estate development? Is it no longer covered by the statutory functions of Owerri Capital Development Authority, OCDA?
What is actually wrong?
John Okochi
Irete
