Flooding: Kwara Governor seeks early dredging of Asa River  

The Kwara State Governor,  AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has charged Eurobel International limited, the firm handling the dredging of Asa river in the state, to deliver according to specifications and within the timeframe to end the perennial flooding in the capital city.

The Governor spoke when a delegation from the Ecological Fund Office led by Dr. Joel Oruche visited him at the Government House in Ilorin, the state capital.

“I am happy that the project is finally taking off. Before the inception of this administration, some work had been done on the Asa Dam area. We were not truly satisfied though we were told it was phase one. Because since we came in, the perennial flood in those areas has caused so much havoc displacing the communities and causing environmental degradation. That led us to push for another assessment so that the project can be looked into,” he said.

“We are glad that our push has come to fruition now and we are happy to see you on site. We hope it takes less than the 18 months you projected. We have seasonally spent a lot of money to make sure our communities and our people are kept safe. What you do is very important to us and we thank the federal government and also look forward to the contractor playing their own role to make sure that they deliver the project not just on time but before time,” he added.

In his remarks, the State Environmental Taskforce Chairman, Alhaji Abubakar AbdulRazaq Jiddah said that the government had committed huge resources to tackle the annual flooding in the metropolis, urging the contractor to be conscious of quality and timeline of work.

He enjoined the contractor to engage the service of youths in the host communities in order to give them a sense of belonging in addition to boosting the economy.

The head of the delegation, Oruche, said their visit was to inform Governor AbdulRazaq of the resumption of channelization of Asa River in Kwara, pledging that the work would be completed in 18 months.

According to him, the main purpose of coming to the state is to officially hand over the project site to the contractor, so that it will be officially flagged-off, stating that “today, the contractor takes over and we start to count for him for the next 18 months.”

The briefing was also attended by the Kwara State Commissioner for Environment and Forestry, Mrs. Remilekun Banigbe.

Nneka Ukachukwu