Residents Lament Flooding In Community

Residents and shop owners in Rumuosi community of Akpor kingdom in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, have lamented  what they described as an induced flooding of the community which has now impacted negatively on daily business and movement in the area.

The residents who expressed displeasure over how the only road  in the community that links Rumuosi and Ozuoba has become unpassable even in the dry season, have posited also that the flooding has drastically slowed down  both business and movement in the area.

One of the residents of the area Mr Simeon Echionwu said that the decision to fix portions of the road that were bad last December without better preparation to finish the work was responsible for the predicament the people and residents of the area are now facing.

He said that an organisation came to reconstruct the road last December but ended up worsening the state of the road, as they converted the road to borrow-pit where water now accumulate and abandoned  it since then, without any feelings for the people.

According to him “any time it rains, all the places are flooded, some houses and compound become a “no go” areas.

Shops will be forced to close, while movement will be restricted.

One of the shop owners popularly called Madam  Faith, said she now spends extra money to convey her goods to the shop, since vehicles   no longer ply the road.

She said she engages some able bodied men who assist her  to carry her goods to the shop, from the point  vehicles stopped her, adding that such has cost her extra sum.

Meanwhile, some tenants in the area have threatened to leave the area if nothing is done soonest to solve the problem, stressing that the situation now is becoming unbearable even with the dry season.

When The Tide visited some compounds and shops in the area, the scenario was pitiable  as the environment looks like an abandoned zone, with mud surrounding some houses and shops.

Corlins Walter