Residents of Isheri Estate community in the OPIC area, along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, have resorted to the services of boat paddlers to navigate flooded areas, Punch Newspaper reported.
The flooding of the riverine area is connected to the release of water from the Oyan River Dam by the Ogun-Oshun River Basin Authority. The main issue now appears to be that there are not enough boats to meet rising demand.
“The boat we put on that road is so overwhelmed that people will be calling me from left and right that they have been waiting for long without seeing a boat to carry them,” one community leader said.
“They say the operator is not picking up his calls. When I called the operator, he would also lament that he did not know what to do because people were calling him from different points and that he could not be at the places at the same time. And when some people waited for so long without a boat in sight, they entered the river and began to wade through. I had to switch off my telephone at some point. It is so terrible.”