Two brothers from Alibioba Community, Agbor, in Ika South Local Government Area of Delta State, Testimony Okwuokenye (15) and Godwin Okwuokenye (11), were swept away last Thursday by flood.
It was gathered that the downpour which started at about 3:45 pm swept away Testimony, a JSS 1 student of Agbor Technical College and his brother, Godwin, a primary five pupil of Alibioba Primary School in the area.
The eye witness said that the brothers were returning home from an outing when the rain started, adding that they stepped into a gutter few metres away from their home.
Speaking in an interview, father of the deceased teenagers and a pastor in one of the pentecostal churches in the area, Godday Okwuokenye, said at about 4:30 pm on that fateful day, he received a distress call by a teenager in the area who informed him that flood had swept away the two brothers.
His words: โThat day, Thursday, I went to our garden with my children, Testimony and Godwin. When we discovered that the weather was changing, threatening to rain, we rushed home. When we got home, it was already drizzling and, both of them carried some basins to gather water.
โThen, I went into my room and decided to lie down on the bed. That was how I slept off. Few minute later, I heard some knock on the door and when I opened, the boy who was knocking said to me, โSir, are you the father of Testimony, I said yes. Then, he said to me that flood carried both of them.
โHe said that Godwin, my younger son, fell into the gutter and Testimony, the elder one, in a bid to rescue the younger brother, was swept away with Godwin.
โWhen I heard this, I quickly rushed out to the scene. But at Uromi Junction axis, I found a crowd of rescue team who had rescued one of them, whom I quickly rushed to the hospital where doctors at the Central Hospital, Agbor, confirmed that he was already dead.
โThe second boy was discovered the following morning and he was also already dead,โ the father said while sobbing.
Reacting to the development, residents in the area who included the chairman, Landlords/Landladies Association, Mr. Chukwuyem Odia; a retired civil servant, Mr. Daniel Osunde; a 56-year-old housewife, Mrs Patience Edwin, as well as a 60-year-old housewife, Mrs Juliana Ehiosu, called on the state government to come to their aid in addressing the gully erosion challenge in the area.
According to the respondents, the gully erosion has continued to pose dangerous threat to lives and properties in the area, particularly the lives of pupils of Alibioba Primary School in the area as well as students of Agbor Technical College.
They explained that due to the nature of the road and the gully, several pupils and students of the school had in the past been rescued from the gully, adding that a lot of them have had broken limbs just as several buildings are at the verge of collapse.
