The flooding which reportedly wreaked havoc last week Friday washed away the investment they put at over N500 million.
Speaking on behalf of other victims during a press briefing held on Friday, the Chairman of the Ikanga Agoro Fish Farmers Association, Lazarus Okole, said the flood had put the farmers out of business.
Okole who was flanked by the Secretary, Oluyemi Oludayo and other executive members, said the over 200 affected farmers spread across five fish farmers clusters of Ifeoluwa, Asejere, Progressive, Joye and Kajola.
He explained that though the farmers had in the past experienced mild flooding, the magnitude and impact of the losses suffered could not be compared with that of the latest disaster.
He added that except the Federal Government and the state Governor, Dapo Abiodun, come to their rescue, many farmers might die from the shock of the huge losses.
Okole said, “the fish farmers believed that this flooding incident is unconnected with a large volume of water channeled from the ongoing construction of Molipa/Imowo expressway by the state government to the already bad Ikangba road with no drainage and this goes into Yemule river which overflows into our various fish ponds”.
He submitted that to avert a recurrence of this tragedy, the state government must as a matter of priority fix the impassable Ikangba road with wide drainages on both sides.
He also advised the Yemule river is also dredged so that it could be wide and deep enough to accommodate the volume of water channeled into it from the Molipa/Imowo expressway, Ijebu-Ode.
Okole said that the communities around Ikangba, Agoro, and its environs had equally in the recent past pleaded with the state government to help reconstruct the Ikangba road because of its economic importance of the road.
According to him, the residents of the area are usually subjected to untold hardship, especially during the rainy season.
Okole said “as things stand now, we are in pain, many of us are operating on bank loans, we decided to go into fish farming as a way of empowering ourselves having searched everywhere for jobs but without one.
“We ventured into the business of fish farming because we don’t want to be the idle hands that the devil can use, we have also been contributing to the provision of the proteinous intake of the populace, we have been contributing our quota to the economic development of our country but all these are gone now.
“We sincerely hereby beg President Muhammadu Buhari and our dear governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun to come to our aid. This could be in form of granting us soft loans to cushion the effect of this tragic losses so that our members can have something with which they can start all over again.
“We also plead that Gov Abiodun should help us fix Ikangba road and with drainages that are wide enough to handle the large volume of water coming from inside Ijebu Ode while Yemule river which serves as the collection point for this huge erosion is dredged to be wide and deep enough to collect this water”.
