By Obiabin Onukwugha
Residents of Bonny in Rivers State, have cried out over flooding, which they say has displaced them and affected their businesses after days of sustained rains.
There have been heavy downpour in parts of Rivers State since July, causing flooding and displacing many.
It was gathered that the flood waters generated by continuous rainfall in the past ten days and in the preceding weeks generally remained stagnant at the King Perekule area of Bonny Island, popularly known as New Road, with nowhere to evacuate to due to blocked drainages.
The New Road is part of the Bodo-Bonny road being constructed by Julius Berger onbehalf of the federal government.
Residents said the stagnation was due to lack of evacuation channels on both sides of the Bonny Oil and Gas Terminal axis and the King Perekule Road.
According to them the situation became aggravated due to the blockage of five culverts reportedly built by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) but later blocked reportedly to deny trespassers access into the BOGT.
On the other hand, the King Perekule Road, which is part of the Bodo-Bonny Road being constructed by Julius Berger Nigeria Plc for the Federal Ministry of Works and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG), is slanted to drain water into that axis of the road.
The residents at King Perekule Road popularly known as New Road, lamented that they are not able to sleep, cook, or go about their daily activities due to the flood waters.
They also counted their losses in terms of damaged household appliances, lack of access to their business places and danger posed by reptiles roaming around in the flood waters.
One resident, Adda Allison stated that a black snake was killed while trying to climb over his fence into his compound while a python was killed in the residence of one of his neighbours.
“I have not gone out of my house for days now and that has cost me millions of Naira as I could not go and do my business. My family have been stranded as well and my dog’s kernel and generator house are both submerged in water,” he lamented.
Another resident, Tari Jumbo said he almost got electrocuted when the flood waters entered his house and submerged his electrical socket, while his wife and daughter have had to starve as no way to go get food stuffs and baby food with everywhere flooded.
He also lamented the damage to his musical equipment and household appliances, calling on the authorities to come to their aid.
He said: “This problem started long ago when we observed that Shell had closed the culverts, they built to evacuate water from our side of their fence. When we met them, they claimed scavengers were passing through the culverts to trespass into their facility.”
“To make matters worse, they now built a road on top of the culverts effectively shutting down any hopes of opening them up. Water passing under the culverts flow out through a canal to the Shell slot by NLNG jetty.”
Also, speaking, a landlord, Minaopunye Green lamented how he lost equipment worth millions of Naira to the flood, blaming Shell and Julius Berger for creating an avoidable situation, stressing that even his tenants cannot access their business places.
Green said: “I don’t know what they are going to do but whatever they are going to do, let them do it quickly because the situation is getting out of hand. Things are being damaged and people are losing their means of livelihoods.”
A report by Kristina indicates rising water levels around the area from United Bank for Africa (UBA) Bonny Branch to First Bank Bonny Branch, which compound is flooded, down to Willbros junction where several buildings have been submerged in water with the owners displaced.
The residents appealed to the federal, state and local governments, Shell, NLNG and Julius Berger to come to their aid, pleading for relief materials for those already displaced from their homes, as well as urgent intervention in opening up channels for the water to evacuate.
