Storm Wreaks Havoc, Renders Many Homeless In Osun Community 

Hundreds of houses, including a multi-million naira Civic Center, were wrecked in Ilare-Ijesa, Obokun-East Local Government Development Area, Osun State by a heavy rainstorm on Friday evening.

The storm in a 25-minute downpour besieged the community on Friday, January 27 and destroyed valuables.

No fewer than one hundred houses were blown off by the storm including a police station, churches, shops and residential buildings.

Some of the victims whose properties were wrecked by the storm were observed wailing about their fate and lamenting the unprecedented hazard.

Also affected are 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, Tope Abiola was the self-help project which the community started eight years ago, under the banner of the Ilare Development Association (IDA).

While lamenting the hazard, the President of the Ilare Development Association, Samuel Omoyulenu Fabunmi regretted that the collapse of the building was a monumental loss to the town.

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, the town's monarch, Oba Adejoro Otebolaku, the Owalare of Ilare appealed to indigenes of the town not to be devastated about the disaster, but to thank God that there was no 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 the entire community.

Oba Otebolaku declared that it was unfortunate for the community to experience such a colossal loss.

“Ilare-Ijesa is a community that has never benefited from any social-infrastructure from any tier of government.

"That all infrastructure in the community, ranging from, schools, hospitals, roads, Post Office and other facilities in the town were self-help projects by the indigenes."

He stressed that it was quite unfortunate to see the multi-million naira edifice put in place by sons and daughters blown off by the wind.