Flood : Environmental Expert Warns Nigerians Against Building Houses Beside Stream

The Former Director of Flood Control and Engineering Services in The Ministry of Environment in Osun State, Engineer Depo Alani has warned Nigerians against building their houses where stream is located no matter how small the stream might be.

He stated that the stream that they sees as very small today, if development takes place, many water will run into the channel much more than the capacity of the stream can hold hereby leading to flood.

Also stating on Rave FM Osogbo on Wednesday, Engineer Alani urged the State government to compensate by providing another residence for those that their houses were besides the river and were told to depart from there.

He said providing houses for them will stop them from being obstinate to leave that house.

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“It is important that we attract the will of the government, the government should first of all be willing to ensure that the lives of people in the state are saved, they are important to the government.

“There are so many things that an individual is not going to do a structure that is beside a river is going to be very difficult for anybody to convince the person to leave particularly because of individual’s economic now, because if he leaves where is he going?

“But the government has the capacity to say you must leave this place because we are going to provide another new place for you that is going to be a new challenge all together at least he is going to have cover on his head.

“But if you just say this place is not good if you don’t leave this place, this house may collapse, the man will say let it collapse first and let see where we are going from there but the government can enforce it, no you must leave this place and gave us an alternative.

“The government should ensure that there are protected areas, protected areas in the sense that when you just look at a stream, no matter how small it is please contact an expert to see whether it is save to build there once you see, if it is a very small stream run away from it.

“There are some of this tiny rivers and streams that affect people more than Osun River.” Said Alani.