Family of three feared dead in Abuja flooding

‎A family of 3 lost their lives, as result of flood tragedy arising from early morning down pour on Thursday, in Abuja in one of the estates located at Lokogoma District.

The deceased, simply identified as Kenneth was said to be a resident of IPENT 5 Estate in Lokogoma. He allegedly was taking his two children to a summer lesson around 7am in their Honda SUV Jeep when he ran into the flash flood at Pengassan Estate, Phase 2 junction, which over flooded the car killing all the three occupants of the car.

It would be recalled that about 30 days ago, flood claimed a family of three at Dei-Dei area of Abuja.

When Businessday, visited the scene of the flood tragedy, some neighbours and sympathisers of the deceased family who were still around the scene, said the man and his children met their untimely death because the man resist a warning by some people who saw the force of the flood and advised him to wait till the water subsides.

The Director General of FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Idris Abbas, while briefing journalists about the incident stated that his team got to the place late when some residents had already rescued the bodies of the man and his two children.

” My team got to the place late the dead bodies of the man and his children had been rescued by some locals. We could not carry out further assessment of the situation because of the angry mob on the scene.

“We also gathered that the dead bodies had been deposited at the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi” Abbass said.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of Pengassan Estate, one of the adjourning estates in the area, who also was part of the rescue team, Imoudu Okpogha, said that flooding is a nightmare that residents of all the estates in Lokogoma have continued to grapple with.

He said flooding menace has made life unbearable to the residents of Lokogoma estates.

According to him, the various residents associations have cried out to the Federal Capital Territory Development Authority (FCDA) to provide basic infrastructure within the area, but their cries never received any attention.

” We call on the FCT Minister to come to our aid. In this place once it begins to rain, we don’t go out of the area and if we are outside we can’t come in, our children cannot go to school because of the raging flood, coupled with the bad road.

” During the last Ramadan, some of the residents were forced to break their fast on the road because there was a heavy flood that lasted for hours and prevented people from getting to their homes.

” As you can see, we don’t have roads to the many estates in this Lokogoma, and this is how we suffer each time the rainy season begins” Okpogha said.

 

LAIDE AKINBOADE-ORIERE