The Chairman of Trademore Estate, Phase 3 Residents Association, Adewale Adenaike, on Tuesday said none of the residents of the estate died as a result of the recent flooding.
The estate, located off Umaru Musa Yar’adua Expressway (formerly Airport Road), witnessed yet another flood between late Sunday night and Monday morning, leading to the death of at least three persons and the destruction of properties worth billions of naira.
Altogether, about 166 houses were affected by the flood, which many of the old residents described as the worst in 12 years.
Mr Adenaike told PREMIUM TIMES that all the bodies recovered so far were swept into the estate by the flood.
“As far as I know today, when the NEMA people came, they confirmed that they had picked up seven bodies all together.
“We didn’t lose any residents, all the people who died are not from here. They are visitors. The guy who was in the Rover came to buy things in the estate. So, he is not a member of this estate and the other bodies came with the flash flood, they are not really resident,” he said.
The residents on Tuesday morning identified one of the dead victims as a top official of the State Security Service (SSS).
This newspaper could however not verify the information as of the time of filing this report because the agency spokesperson, Peter Ifunanya, did not respond to calls or text messages to his mobile telephone.
Justin Uwazuruonye, Head of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Abuja Operations Office, in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, said only four persons died in the flood incident.
He said the agency only evacuated one while the other three were located by the families of the victims as the search for more bodies continued.
“I’m not aware of that, officially FEMA and police are aware of four, we (NEMA) are also aware of four,” he said
“We were the ones that evacuated one from the vehicle. The other three bodies were from the families. We only told them to report officially to the police if somebody is missing or dead somewhere, in case they see any dead body along the drainage system down to those villages.
“As I speak with you this evening, we don’t have any official information indicating that the number of casualties has risen to seven.
“We were there today, we are just coming from there. It is today we were able to recover the vehicle of the last body we evacuated yesterday,” he said.
Mr Uwazuruonye dismissed speculations that three additional bodies were evacuated from the scenes of the havoc.
As the search continued, PREMIUM TIMES during a visit to the estate on Tuesday noticed that business activities had picked up despite the ruins in their surroundings occasioned by the flood.
An officer who pleaded anonymity because he was not authorised to speak told PREMIUM TIMES that the station lost quite a number of vital documents.
Officials from the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), led by its Vice-Chairman, Lawrence Onuchukwu, also visited the scenes of flooding and pledged support for the residents.