Edo Community Residents Flee, As Flood Submerges Homes


The condition of people living in Upper Erediawa Street, off Upper Sakponba Road in Ikpoba-Ohka Local Government Area of Edo State has become pathetic as they have abandoned their homes which have been submerged by foods.

When Orient Daily visited the area some children were seen swimming in the pool while others were fishing in the ponds, with residents groaning.


According to 80-years-old, Pa Daniel Edoboh, “this place where you see children fishing with hooks and nets are all people’s houses. This community has been submerged by flood. More than 100 houses are gone, and I know my own house will go anytime from now, if the government chooses to keep quiet”. The Octogenarian’s house is a few meters from the submerged ones.

“I built this house in 1980. We did not experience flooding here, until five years ago, 2014 or there about, though we were hearing that people down the other side were experiencing flooding. My friends had begged me to leave this place, but I don’t have any other place to go to. I have personally written petitions to the Edo State Government on many occasions, but nothing came out of it.

“When it rains, flood gets to the window level of this house. The last time it rained, this car was covered by flood,” he said, pointing at a Mercedes Benz C Class parked in the middle of his compound.

“What we do is that once it rains, we’ll vacate for some months to allow the flood dry up, then we’ll come back. In fact, all my documents including property documents are all gone. Everything is gone,” he lamented with a sense of hopelessness, throwing up his hands into the air.

Another resident, 75-year-old Pa Sunday Emeota (who owns an uncompleted one- storey building), stated that people in that area had resigned themselves to fate. According to him, only landlords who have no place to go to are left there, as those who have options have left the area.



“Look at my house, my tenants all left long ago. There was even a church here, but the flood made them leave”.

He invited the reporter to the uncompleted upstairs, where children standing on top of a roof with their hooks were fishing in submerged houses.

“There was a fish pond in that place, but as the flood came some years ago, the owner of the pond ran away with his family and since then, the fishes had been multiplying and children from this area and even from farplaces come here to fish.

“The problems were made worse when the government started constructing gutters in this place. We asked them where they planned to channel the water to but they said it was to the flooded area. We found out that the contractors do not have the capacity to do the work because they were using wheelbarrows to mix cement and sand and that was how youths chased them away,” he concluded

Meanwhile, commercial sex workers in Maria Gorrethi area of Upper Sakponba Road are lamenting their lack of patronage as a result of incessant flooding. Juliet, a 20-year-old commercial sex worker from Benue State came to Benin in 2018. She has lived in the brothel (name withheld) for the past two years. According to her, during dry season she meets five to 10 men a day, but now, once it rains, she may not even find any customer for the whole day and she desperately wants to relocate to a more viable area.

“My name is Juliet. I am from Benue State. I came to Benin to hustle in 2018. When I newly came to Benin I was getting about 5 to 10 customers a day. That was during the dry season, but today, if rain falls, this whole place will be over flooded and you will not see any man that will enter here. I am really planning to go to another part of the town,” she said.

Blessing, 23, also disclosed that the flooding has become such a major problem to the sex workers that they cannot wait for the dry season to come as they are finding it difficult to pay their weekly rents.

“My brother, the flood problem here is much. If I had come to this place during the rainy season, I don’t think I will still be here because once it rains, nobody can cross to this place and no man will want to come to this place (brothel). During the dry season, I get up to seven to 10 customers a day, but now, if you see two persons in a day, you will be happy. Sometimes, to pay our weekly rent, which is N3,000.00, is very difficult,” she said.

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