ONDO RESIDENTS TO ENJOY GAINS OF OWENA DAM SOON- FG 04-11-24
By Sadiq Aminu The people of ondo state will soon reap the gains of Owena dam.
The director of dams and reservour operations, Federal Ministry of Water resources and Sanitation, Mr Ali Ibrahim-Da-allah made the submission when he led a team from the ministry on an on the spot assessment of Owena water dams in Ondo state to evaluate its condition.
The exercise followed the federal government’s pledge to use water dams across the country for economic benefits and environmental safety as well as prevent dam collapse which usually comes with devastating effects as witnessed in Maiduguri, Borno state, this year.
Mr Ibrahim-Da-allah said the Owena dam was built to serve three purposes of irrigation, water provision, and hydropower generation but lamented that the dam had not been put into use since its construction in 2007.
“Owena dam has facility for irrigation, from there we can realise food security which the Federal Government is canvassing for and it can equally provide hydropower which is capable of providing employment opportunities. We are hopeful that by the time the hydropower component is put in place, 10mega Watts of hydropower would be realised from the structure.
He expressed optimism in the dam becoming an economic tool if the state government played its statutory role of ensuring distribution of the water, among other things.
Da-allah disclosed that the Federal Government had set up an inter-ministerial committee on evaluation of dams across the country to prevent collapse.
He noted “arising from what happened in September in Alau Dam where a flood disaster occurred that inundated many houses and streets in Maiduguri city, the President saw the need for us to go round the country to evaluate the conditions of our dams in other for us to forestall similar occurrence. That is why we are here, we have gone round the project and we will make our recommendations for a robust plan for government implementation to ensure the safety of the dams.
“You know when a dam collapses the kind of devastation that comes with it is usually huge and the Federal government does not want a repeat of what happened in Maiduguri. So Experts are going round the country to ascertain the health of our dams. We have gone round the Owena dam and we can see that it needs some rehabilitation as a result of non-utilisation of the dam.
The Owena dam constructed in 2007 with a storage capacity of thirty six million cubic meters is 1.7 kilometres long and twenty-four metres deep.