Several residents of Trademore Estate situated on Airport Road in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, have been stuck in their homes, and most have been displaced, as a vast flood submerged the estate after a heavy downpour that lasted for hours on Friday morning, June 23.
On observation, one could see that almost all the houses and vehicles in the estate had been submerged in the flood water, leaving their owners trapped in their houses with little idea on how to get out safely, as at the time of filing this report.
Some passers-by had been spotted by newsmen doing their best to rescue a few trapped residents while the waves of the flood kept on rising.
Residents had meanwhile lamented that they had not expected the flooding in the estate this year as they were of the school of thought that the Federal Capital Territory Authority, FCTA, had extenuated the causes of the annual flood incident.
Flooding during the rainy season is not a surprising phenomenom in Nigeria as it an almost common occurrence given the lack of proper drainage system nationwide. The devastating floods that had occurred in 2022 had displaced millions of people in several states including Anambra, Delta, Niger, Kogi, Adamawa, Gombe, Kebbi, Jigawa, Kaduna, Nasarawa and Benue and killed almost 700 individuals.
One would think that given what happened just last year, several preventative measures would have already been installed in anticipation of this years rainy season, to mitigate the potential flash floods that will occur but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
As usual in Nigeria, everyone will turn a blind eye to a problem until it snowballs.