The family of a woman who was drowned by flood in Akwa Ibom State has called on the state government to recover her remains for burial.
The victim, Ekaette Okpon, 60, who hailed from Nnung Udo Uweme in Iboko Offot village, Uyo, drowned on Wednesday, March 9, 2022, after she mistakenly fell into a drainage channel during the first rainfall in the state.
Members of her community had on Thursday, March 10, blocked the Nkemba axis of Abak Road and demanded immediate recovery of her body and replacement of slabs on the gutter.
Speaking to journalists who visited the deceased’s family house in Uyo on Monday, the Secretary of Nnung Udo Uweme family, Mr Otobong Okpon, said the family expected the state government to promptly cover the drainage to forestall a recurrence.
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He said, “We called the family head, village head, youth president, and put heads together and decided to send a letter, inviting the state government to come and have a discussion with us, prominent among our demands was that we needed the corpse recovered for proper burial.
“We also requested that the gutters be desilted up to the big drainage at Nkemba trough and all the slabs covered back to forestall a recurrence.
“We fixed the meeting for 10am last Friday at Iboko village hall. The Akwa Ibom State Environmental and Waste Management Agency called to acknowledge receipt of the letter, but told us their chairman had travelled to Abuja, so the meeting was postponed to Tuesday.”
Meanwhile, petty traders by Nwaniba Junction have appealed to the government to promptly cover up the gutters and the drainage opened up during the search for the woman, maintaining that the shoddy approach to the situation could endanger the lives of people in the locality.
