By Jubril Bada

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To proffer solutions and mitigate the impacts of impending floods in the state, the Ondo State Ministry of Environment yesterday held a stakeholders’ meeting.

At the meeting held in Akure, the state capital, stakeholders from various ministries, agencies, and organizations, among others, gathered to deliberate on the way out of the menace of perennial flood.

The Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Tayo Oluwatuyi was represented by the Administrative Secretary , Political and Economic Affairs Department, Governor Office , Mr. Omotayo Akeju.

Speaking, the State Commissioner for Environment, Mr. Oyeniyi Oseni, said that preventing looming disaster is not a task the government alone can handle, charging stakeholders to respond committedly in sensitizing the populace.

The commissioner further urged the stakeholders to collectively educate, sensitize, and center discussion at the meeting on making frantic efforts to address the early warning signals and other flood-related causative factors such as climate change issues.

“We cannot overemphasize the truth that the public must be compelled to desist from the habit of disposing of waste in the canal which obstructs drainages and leads to flooding,” he pointed out.

The present government in the state, Oseni maintained, has ordered the channelization of all flood-prone areas in the state, adding that the Ministry had deployed amphibious excavators to high-risk sites for dredging and desilting of the canals.

He added that efforts built over the years through the State Environmental Protection Agency (OSEPA) have been able to rid drainages and streets of plastic waste.

The Commissioner highlighted that the Ministry has stepped up waste collection and disposal mechanisms, dredging River Oluwa to avoid the overflow of stormwater into communities during heavy rain, as aggressive sensitization and advocacy programs will start as soon as possible.

In his remarks, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Environment, Mr. Adeyemi Olayemi, pointed out that flooding remains one of the most persistent natural disasters throughout the world, causing billions of dollars in damage to homes, property and, in some cases, loss of lives.

Olayemi noted part of the contributory factors to the ocean tides that have submerged several communities like Ayetoro in the state was not far-fetched, as it’s largely caused by improper waste disposal and the unwholesome activities of development outfits.

The Commissioner for the Ministry of Physical Planning, Mr. Gbenga Olaniyi, and his counterpart in Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Alhaji Takuro Amidu, assured of their collaboration to construct drainage where needed for free flow of erosion and the need for the Ministry of Environment to come up with a law that will deal decisively with violators against the rules and regulations on the indiscriminate dumping of refuse in drainage.