About 1, 800 buildings in Aba, the commercial nerve centre of Abia State, are to be demolished to enhance flood control which has been responsible for dilapidation of infrastructure in the city.

GovernorTheodore Orji says the buildings marked for demolition were illegally erected on drain channels. The buildings are suspected to be responsible for the perennial flooding experienced in the city which accounts for the collapse of roads.

Governor Orji told newsmen in Umuahia, the state capital, that his administration is determined to arrest the infrastructural decay in Aba and would commence work to actualise this when the rains recede.

“After the rains, we will move into Aba and face flood control. The problem of Aba is flooding. If you don’t control flooding in Aba, any intervention in infrastructural rehabilitation would only amount to waste of funds. Immediately the rains stop, we move in to ensure that all the drains are opened. We have done both the aerial and land surveys in readiness for the work,” the governor said during the interaction at the Banquet Hall of the Government House.

He warned that “in the course of doing that, if there is any building on the drainage, and there are 1,800 of them, they will be knocked down,” adding: “Those people who deliberately blocked the drains with their buildings should be ready to face the consequences.”

Orji noted that Aba is very important and no government can afford to neglect the commercial city. This, according to him, informed the government’s decision to do more roads in Aba than elsewhere in the state even when road construction there is costlier due to the soil texture.

He said he has directed adequate funding of the newly floated Abia State Road Maintenance Agency (ARROMA) to enable it to fix all potholes on roads in both Umuahia and Aba.

*Photo: Some of these buildings located on Port Harcourt Road and environs may have to go in the exercise.