No fewer than one hundred houses including a multi-million naira Civic Center were wrecked in Ilare-Ijesa, Obokun-East Local Government Development Area, Osun State by heavy rainstorm at the weekend.
The storm in a 25 – minute downpour besieged the community and roved round the streets around 6.00 p.m. on Friday 27th January and vandalized some unquantifiable valuables.
The destroyed properties including Police Station, Churches, Shops and residential buildings. When pressmen visited the town on Saturday morning, some of the victims whose properties were wrecked by the storm were seeing weeping profusely, lamenting the unprecedented hazard.
A major catastrophic incidence was the collapse of an ultra-modern Civic Center, a Community Development Self-help Project built by indigenes of the Community, located along Esa-Odo road, Ilare.
The project, according to the spokesperson of the community, Odole Tope Abiola was the self-help project which the community started about Eight years ago, under the banner of Ilare Development Association (IDA).
While lamenting the hazard, the President of Ilare Development Association, Mr. Samuel Omoyulenu Fabunmi regretted that collapse of the building was a monumental loss to the town. Speaking in an emotion-laden voice, with tears rolling on his cheeks, Mr. Fabunmi stated that about One Hundred and Twenty Five Million Naira had already been sunk into the project, voluntarily contributed by the illustrious sons and daughters of the town.
Addressing inhabitants of the town who converged on the site of the collapsed building for an inter-religious prayer in the early hours of Monday, monarch of the town, His Royal Majesty, Oba Adejoro Otebolaku, the Owalare of Ilare appealed to indigenes of the town not to be devastated about the disaster, but thank God that there was no any loss of life in the mishap.
He however called on the Federal Government through the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to come to the aid of the rain-storm victims and entire community.
Oba Otebolaku declared that it was unfortunate for the community to experience such a colossal loss, hence “Ilare-Ijesa is a community that had never benefited any social-infrastructure from any tier of government”.
He enthused “that all infrastructure in the community, ranges from, Schools, Hospital, Roads, Post Office and other facilities in the town were self-help projects by the indigenes”.
He stressed further that it was quite unfortunate to see the multi-million naira edifice put in place by sons and daughters blown off by the wind.
